USN-222-1: Perl vulnerability

Publication date

2 December 2005

Overview

Perl vulnerability


Details

Jack Louis of Dyad Security discovered that Perl did not sufficiently
check the explicit length argument in format strings. Specially
crafted format strings with overly large length arguments led to a
crash of the Perl interpreter or even to execution of arbitrary
attacker-defined code with the privileges of the user running the Perl
program.

However, this attack was only possible in insecure Perl programs which
use variables with user-defined values in string interpolations
without checking their validity.

Jack Louis of Dyad Security discovered that Perl did not sufficiently
check the explicit length argument in format strings. Specially
crafted format strings with overly large length arguments led to a
crash of the Perl interpreter or even to execution of arbitrary
attacker-defined code with the privileges of the user running the Perl
program.

However, this attack was only possible in insecure Perl programs which
use variables with user-defined values in string interpolations
without checking their validity.

Update instructions

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

Learn more about how to get the fixes.

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

Ubuntu Release Package Version
5.10 breezy perl-base – 
5.04 hoary perl-base – 
4.10 warty perl-base – 

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.


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