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USN-2496-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities

9 February 2015

Applications from GNU binutils could be made to crash, run programs, or delete arbitrary files as your login if they opened a specially crafted file.

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Releases

Packages

  • binutils - GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities

Details

Michal Zalewski discovered that the setup_group function in libbfd in
GNU binutils did not properly check group headers in ELF files. An
attacker could use this to craft input that could cause a denial
of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
(CVE-2014-8485)

Hanno Böck discovered that the _bfd_XXi_swap_aouthdr_in function
in libbfd in GNU binutils allowed out-of-bounds writes. An
attacker could use this to craft input that could cause a denial
of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
(CVE-2014-8501)

Hanno Böck discovered a heap-based buffer overflow in the
pe_print_edata function in libbfd in GNU binutils. An attacker
could use this to craft input that could cause a denial of service
(application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2014-8502)

Alexander Cherepanov discovered multiple directory traversal
vulnerabilities in GNU binutils. An attacker could use this to craft
input that could delete arbitrary files. (CVE-2014-8737)

Alexander Cherepanov discovered the _bfd_slurp_extended_name_table
function in libbfd in GNU binutils allowed invalid writes when handling
extended name tables in an archive. An attacker could use this to
craft input that could cause a denial of service (application crash)
or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2014-8738)

Hanno Böck discovered a stack-based buffer overflow in the ihex_scan
function in libbfd in GNU binutils. An attacker could use this
to craft input that could cause a denial of service (application
crash). (CVE-2014-8503)

Michal Zalewski discovered a stack-based buffer overflow in the
srec_scan function in libbfd in GNU binutils. An attacker could
use this to to craft input that could cause a denial of service
(application crash); the GNU C library's Fortify Source printf
protection should prevent the possibility of executing arbitrary code.
(CVE-2014-8504)

Michal Zalewski discovered that the srec_scan function in libbfd
in GNU binutils allowed out-of-bounds reads. An attacker could
use this to craft input to cause a denial of service. This issue
only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 10.04
LTS. (CVE-2014-8484)

Sang Kil Cha discovered multiple integer overflows in the
_objalloc_alloc function and objalloc_alloc macro in binutils. This
could allow an attacker to cause a denial of service (application
crash). This issue only affected Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
(CVE-2012-3509)

Alexander Cherepanov and Hanno Böck discovered multiple additional
out-of-bounds reads and writes in GNU binutils. An attacker could use
these to craft input that could cause a denial of service (application
crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code. A few of these issues may
be limited in exposure to a denial of service (application abort)
by the GNU C library's Fortify Source printf protection.

The strings(1) utility in GNU binutils used libbfd by default when
examining executable object files; unfortunately, libbfd was not
originally developed with the expectation of hostile input. As
a defensive measure, the behavior of strings has been changed to
default to 'strings --all' behavior, which does not use libbfd; use
the new argument to strings, '--data', to recreate the old behavior.

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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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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.10
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 10.04

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

Related notices

  • USN-3367-1: gdb-minimal, gdb-multiarch, gdb64, gdb-source, gdb-doc, gdb, gdbserver