[ISN] Red Hat patches critical hole

[InfoSec News]

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,100860,00.html

by Matthew Broersma
APRIL 04, 2005 
TECHWORLD.COM

Red Hat Inc. is warning enterprise Linux users to update their
installations of XFree86 to fix a number of serious security bugs,
some of which could allow attackers to take over a system.  The
affected operating systems include Enterprise Linux AS 3, Enterprise
Linux ES 3 and Enterprise Linux WS 3, Red Hat said in an advisory.

Separately, vendors have patched critical flaws in ImageMagick,
Sylpheed and several components of Silicon Graphics Inc.'s Advanced
Linux Environment.

XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System providing
low-level graphics functionality for graphical user interface systems
such as KDE and GNOME. The most serious flaw is an integer overflow in
the libXpm library, which is used by some applications in opening XPM
images, Red Hat said. An attacker could use a malicious XPM file to
execute code on a user's system.

Red Hat said the bug is moderately critical, but independent security
firm Secunia said in an advisory that the vulnerability is serious
because it could allow a remote attacker to gain system access. The
latest XFree86 release, issued on March 16, fixes the libXpm
vulnerability and several others.

Red Hat and others are also patching a newly disclosed vulnerability
in the Sylpheed e-mail client, which could allow the execution of
malicious code when a message is displayed. Attackers could use a
message containing an attachment with a MIME-encoded file name to
trigger a boundary error, resulting in a buffer overflow, according to
researchers. Versions 0.8.0 to 1.0.3 and development Versions 1.9.0 to
1.9.4 are affected, said Secunia, which gave the bug a "highly
critical" rating. The fix is available from Sylpheed's Web site and
from Linux vendors.

MandrakeSoft SA and Red Hat have patched flaws in ImageMagick, a
widely used open-source image editing suite, that could allow the
remote execution of malicious code. The bugs include a format string
error within the handling of file names and a boundary error in the
decoding of PSD images, and they could be exploited by specially
crafted image files, according to security experts.

SGI issued an update for its Advanced Linux Environment to fix a
number of bugs that could allow remote system takeover or
denial-of-service attack or let malicious local users manipulate the
contents of some files. The bugs affect the xpdf, squid and kdenetwork
components, SGI said.