USN-1297-1: Django vulnerabilities

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1297-1

8th December, 2011

python-django vulnerabilities

A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:

  • Ubuntu 11.10
  • Ubuntu 11.04
  • Ubuntu 10.10
  • Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Summary

Applications using Django could be made to crash or expose sensitive information.

Software description

  • python-django - High-level Python web development framework

Details

Pall McMillan discovered that Django used the root namespace when storing
cached session data. A remote attacker could exploit this to modify
sessions. (CVE-2011-4136)

Paul McMillan discovered that Django would not timeout on arbitrary URLs
when the application used URLFields. This could be exploited by a remote
attacker to cause a denial of service via resource exhaustion.
(CVE-2011-4137)

Paul McMillan discovered that while Django would check the validity of a
URL via a HEAD request, it would instead use a GET request for the target
of a redirect. This could potentially be used to trigger arbitrary GET
requests via a crafted Location header. (CVE-2011-4138)

It was discovered that Django would sometimes use a request's HTTP Host
header to construct a full URL. A remote attacker could exploit this to
conduct host header cache poisoning attacks via a crafted request.
(CVE-2011-4139)

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package version:

Ubuntu 11.10:
python-django 1.3-2ubuntu1.1
Ubuntu 11.04:
python-django 1.2.5-1ubuntu1.1
Ubuntu 10.10:
python-django 1.2.3-1ubuntu0.2.10.10.3
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
python-django 1.1.1-2ubuntu1.4

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-2011-4136, CVE-2011-4137, CVE-2011-4138, CVE-2011-4139