Red Hat is warning enterprise Linux users to update their installations of XFree86 to fix a number of serious security bugs, some of which could allow attackers to take over a system.

The affected operating systems include Enterprise Linux AS 3, Enterprise Linux ES 3 and Enterprise Linux WS 3, Red Hat said in an advisory.

Separately, vendors have patched critical flaws in ImageMagick, Sylpheed and several components of Silicon Graphics Inc.'s Advanced Linux Environment.

XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System providing low-level graphics functionality for graphical user interface systems such as KDE and GNOME. The most serious flaw is an integer overflow in the libXpm library, which is used by some applications in opening XPM images, Red Hat said. An attacker could use a malicious XPM file to execute code on a user's system.

Red Hat said the bug is moderately critical, but independent security firm Secunia said in an advisory that the vulnerability is serious because it could allow a remote attacker to gain system access. The latest XFree86 release, issued on March 16, fixes the libXpm vulnerability and several others.

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