1. Ubuntu Security Notices
  2. USN-2985-1

USN-2985-1: GNU C Library vulnerabilities

Publication date

25 May 2016

Overview

Several security issues were fixed in the GNU C Library.

Releases

Packages

Details

Martin Carpenter discovered that pt_chown in the GNU C Library did not
properly check permissions for tty files. A local attacker could use this
to gain administrative privileges or expose sensitive information.
(CVE-2013-2207, CVE-2016-2856)

Robin Hack discovered that the Name Service Switch (NSS) implementation in
the GNU C Library did not properly manage its file descriptors. An attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (infinite loop).
(CVE-2014-8121)

Joseph Myers discovered that the GNU C Library did not properly handle long
arguments to functions returning a representation of Not a Number (NaN). An
attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion
leading to an application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
(

Martin Carpenter discovered that pt_chown in the GNU C Library did not
properly check permissions for tty files. A local attacker could use this
to gain administrative privileges or expose sensitive information.
(CVE-2013-2207, CVE-2016-2856)

Robin Hack discovered that the Name Service Switch (NSS) implementation in
the GNU C Library did not properly manage its file descriptors. An attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (infinite loop).
(CVE-2014-8121)

Joseph Myers discovered that the GNU C Library did not properly handle long
arguments to functions returning a representation of Not a Number (NaN). An
attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion
leading to an application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
(CVE-2014-9761)

Arjun Shankar discovered that in certain situations the nss_dns code in the
GNU C Library did not properly account buffer sizes when passed an
unaligned buffer. An attacker could use this to cause a denial of service
or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2015-1781)

Sumit Bose and Lukas Slebodnik discovered that the Name Service
Switch (NSS) implementation in the GNU C Library did not handle long
lines in the files databases correctly. A local attacker could use
this to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly
execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2015-5277)

Adam Nielsen discovered that the strftime function in the GNU C Library did
not properly handle out-of-range argument data. An attacker could use this
to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly expose
sensitive information. (CVE-2015-8776)

Hector Marco and Ismael Ripoll discovered that the GNU C Library allowed
the pointer-guarding protection mechanism to be disabled by honoring the
LD_POINTER_GUARD environment variable across privilege boundaries. A local
attacker could use this to exploit an existing vulnerability more easily.
(CVE-2015-8777)

Szabolcs Nagy discovered that the hcreate functions in the GNU C Library
did not properly check its size argument, leading to an integer overflow.
An attacker could use to cause a denial of service (application crash) or
possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2015-8778)

Maksymilian Arciemowicz discovered a stack-based buffer overflow in the
catopen function in the GNU C Library when handling long catalog names. An
attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (application crash) or
possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2015-8779)

Florian Weimer discovered that the getnetbyname implementation in the GNU C
Library did not properly handle long names passed as arguments. An attacker
could use to cause a denial of service (stack exhaustion leading to an
application crash). (CVE-2016-3075)

Update instructions

After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to 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
15.10 wily libc6 –  2.21-0ubuntu4.2
libc6-dev –  2.21-0ubuntu4.2
14.04 trusty libc6 –  2.19-0ubuntu6.8
libc6-dev –  2.19-0ubuntu6.8
12.04 precise libc6 –  2.15-0ubuntu10.14
libc6-dev –  2.15-0ubuntu10.14

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References

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