USN-2820-1: dpkg vulnerability

26 November 2015

dpkg-deb could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted file.

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Releases

Packages

  • dpkg - Debian package management system

Details

Hanno Boeck discovered that the dpkg-deb tool incorrectly handled certain
old style Debian binary packages. If a user or an automated system were
tricked into unpacking a specially crafted binary package, a remote
attacker could possibly use this issue to execute arbitrary code.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 15.10
Ubuntu 15.04
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 12.04

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

References

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Further reading