Ubuntu 16.04 LTS USN-3157-1 Critical: Apport Code Execution Threat

ubuntu

December 14, 2016

Apport could be made to run programs as your login if it opened aspecially crafted file.

Summary

Apport could be made to run programs as your login if it opened a

specially crafted file.

Software Description:

- apport: automatically generate crash reports for debugging

Details:

Donncha O Cearbhaill discovered that the crash file parser in Apport

improperly treated the CrashDB field as python code. An attacker could

use this to convince a user to open a maliciously crafted crash file

and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of that user. This issue

only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. (CVE-2016-9949)

Donncha O Cearbhaill discovered that Apport did not properly sanitize the

Package and SourcePackage fields in crash files before processing package

specific hooks. An attacker could use this to convince a user to open a

maliciously crafted crash file and execute arbitrary code with the

privileges of that user. (CVE-2016-9950)

Donncha O Cearbhaill discovered that Apport would offer to restart an

application based on the contents of the RespawnCommand or Pr...

Read the Full Advisory

Topics Covered

security advisory critical arbitrary code execution ubuntu apport

Update Instructions

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

Ubuntu 16.10:
  apport                          2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
  apport-gtk                      2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
  apport-kde                      2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
  python-apport                   2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
  python3-apport                  2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS:
  apport                          2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
  apport-gtk                      2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
  apport-kde                      2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
  python-apport                   2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
  python3-apport                  2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:
  apport                          2.14.1-0ubuntu3.23
  apport-gtk                      2.14.1-0ubuntu3.23
  apport-kde                      2.14.1-0ubuntu3.23
  python-apport                   2.14.1-0ubuntu3.23
  python3-apport                  2.14.1-0ubuntu3.23

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
  apport                          2.0.1-0ubuntu17.15
  apport-gtk                      2.0.1-0ubuntu17.15
  apport-kde                      2.0.1-0ubuntu17.15
  python-apport                   2.0.1-0ubuntu17.15

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