Ubuntu Security Notice USN-2496-1
9th February, 2015
binutils vulnerabilities
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its
derivatives:
- Ubuntu 14.10
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Summary
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.
Software description
- 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.
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following
package version:
- Ubuntu 14.10:
-
binutils-multiarch
2.24.90.20141014-0ubuntu3.1
-
binutils
2.24.90.20141014-0ubuntu3.1
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:
-
binutils-multiarch
2.24-5ubuntu3.1
-
binutils
2.24-5ubuntu3.1
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
-
binutils-multiarch
2.22-6ubuntu1.2
-
binutils
2.22-6ubuntu1.2
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
-
binutils-multiarch
2.20.1-3ubuntu7.2
-
binutils
2.20.1-3ubuntu7.2
To update your system, please follow these instructions:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
References
CVE-2012-3509,
CVE-2014-8484,
CVE-2014-8485,
CVE-2014-8501,
CVE-2014-8502,
CVE-2014-8503,
CVE-2014-8504,
CVE-2014-8737,
CVE-2014-8738