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Alerts This Week
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Ubuntu 13.04: USN-1983-1 Critical: Python 2.7 Denial Of Service

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Calendar Grey October 1, 2013
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Important security alert: Python 2.7 has a critical vulnerability affecting resource use and susceptibility to MITM attacks needing immediate attention
Several security issues were fixed in Python.

Summary

Several security issues were fixed in Python.

Software Description:

- python2.7: An interactive high-level object-oriented language

Details:

Florian Weimer discovered that Python incorrectly handled matching multiple

wildcards in ssl certificate hostnames. An attacker could exploit this to

cause Python to consume resources, resulting in a denial of service. This

issue only affected Ubuntu 13.04. (CVE-2013-2099)

Ryan Sleevi discovered that Python did not properly handle certificates

with NULL characters in the Subject Alternative Name field. An attacker

could exploit this to perform a man in the middle attack to view sensitive

information or alter encrypted communications. (CVE-2013-4238)

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory denial of service software fix ubuntu man-in-the-middle python resource consumption

Update Instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following
package versions:

Ubuntu 13.04:
  python2.7                       2.7.4-2ubuntu3.2
  python2.7-minimal               2.7.4-2ubuntu3.2

Ubuntu 12.10:
  python2.7                       2.7.3-5ubuntu4.3
  python2.7-minimal               2.7.3-5ubuntu4.3

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
  python2.7                       2.7.3-0ubuntu3.4
  python2.7-minimal               2.7.3-0ubuntu3.4

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1983-1

CVE-2013-2099, CVE-2013-4238

Severity
critical
Lowest
Low
Medium
High
Critical

October 01, 2013

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory denial of service software fix ubuntu man-in-the-middle python resource consumption

Package Information

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python2.7/2.7.4-2ubuntu3.2
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python2.7/2.7.3-5ubuntu4.3
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python2.7/2.7.3-0ubuntu3.4

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