1. Ubuntu Security Notices
  2. USN-168-1

USN-168-1: Gaim vulnerabilities

Publication date

12 August 2005

Overview

Gaim vulnerabilities

Releases

Details

Daniel Atallah discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the
file transfer handler of OSCAR (the module that handles various
instant messaging protocols like ICQ). A remote attacker could crash
the Gaim client of an user by attempting to send him a file with
a name that contains invalid UTF-8 characters. (CAN-2005-2102)

It was found that specially crafted “away” messages triggered a buffer
overflow. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the Gaim
client or possibly even execute arbitrary code with the permissions of
the Gaim user. (CAN-2005-2103)

Szymon Zygmunt and Michał Bartoszkiewicz discovered a memory alignment
error in the Gadu library, which was fixed in USN-162-1. However, it
was discovered that Gaim contains a copy of the vulnerable code. By
sending specially crafted messages over the Gadu protocol, a remote
attacker could crash Gaim. (CAN-2005-2370)

Daniel Atallah discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the
file transfer handler of OSCAR (the module that handles various
instant messaging protocols like ICQ). A remote attacker could crash
the Gaim client of an user by attempting to send him a file with
a name that contains invalid UTF-8 characters. (CAN-2005-2102)

It was found that specially crafted “away” messages triggered a buffer
overflow. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the Gaim
client or possibly even execute arbitrary code with the permissions of
the Gaim user. (CAN-2005-2103)

Szymon Zygmunt and Michał Bartoszkiewicz discovered a memory alignment
error in the Gadu library, which was fixed in USN-162-1. However, it
was discovered that Gaim contains a copy of the vulnerable code. By
sending specially crafted messages over the Gadu protocol, a remote
attacker could crash Gaim. (CAN-2005-2370)

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
5.04 hoary gaim – 
4.10 warty gaim – 

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.

Get Ubuntu Pro

References

Have additional questions?

Talk to a member of the team ›