Categories: Security

Ubuntu patched several security vulnerabilities

Ubuntu has released several patches for security vulnerabilities in different versions of the OS, including some CSRF, DoS and remote code execution flaws.

Ubuntu has patched several security vulnerabilities that affect different OSs, some of them are affecting Thunderbird client included in Ubuntu release and could be exploited to remotely run arbitrary code.

Thunderbird is a popular Mozilla email client, the company has recently fixed many other vulnerabilities in the same product, including a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) bug and a memory corruption flaw. The CSRF vulnerability in Thunderbird could be exploited if an attacker tricks a targeted user into open a malicious message while scripting is enabled.

As explained in an official advisory, an attacker could exploit the remote code execution flaw by sending specially crafted message with scripting enabled.

“If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted message with scripting enabled, an attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user invoking Thunderbird,” states the Ubuntu advisory. “an attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user invoking Thunderbird. (CVE-2014-8634)”

The advisory also reports another session-fixation attack that could occur under in a specific case when a user is connected to a malicious web proxy. Resuming the bus in Ubuntu Thunderbird are:

Denial of service via application crash – (CVE-2014-8634)
Cross-site request forgery (XSRF) flaw- (CVE-2014-8638)
Exposure to Session-fixation attacks – (CVE-2014-8639)

Ubuntu also patched several other vulnerabilities, one of them fixes a bug in libssh that could be exploited to cause a denial of service.

“It was discovered that libssh incorrectly handled certain kexinit packets. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause libssh to crash, resulting in a denial of service,” the advisory says.

There are also two RPM vulnerabilities that could let an attacker execute arbitrary code and a bug in libevent that could allow code execution in some cases. Below the descriptions for these flaws.

” A local attacker could use this issue to execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2013-6435)”

“If a user or automated system were tricked into installing a malicious package file, a remote attacker could use this issue to cause RPM to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2014-8118)”

“Andrew Bartlett discovered that libevent incorrectly handled large inputs to the evbuffer API. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue with an application that uses libevent to cause a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code,” reports Ubuntu advisory.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Ubuntu, update)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.