Red Hat Security Advisory 2015-0101-01 – The glibc packages provide the standard C libraries, POSIX thread libraries, standard math libraries, and the Name Server Caching Daemon used by multiple programs on the system. Without these libraries, the Linux system cannot function correctly. A heap-based buffer overflow was found in glibc’s __nss_hostname_digits_dots() function, which is used by the gethostbyname() and gethostbyname2() glibc function calls. A remote attacker able to make an application call either of these functions could use this flaw to execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running the application.