Ubuntu Security Notice USN-147-1
5th July, 2005
php4, php4-universe vulnerability
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 5.04
- Ubuntu 4.10
Details
A remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the XMLRPC module
of the PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) extension of PHP. By
sending specially crafted XMLRPC requests to an affected web server, a remote
attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the web server's
privileges.
In Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), the PEAR extension is unsupported (it is
contained in the php4-universe package which is part of universe). However,
since this is a highly critical vulnerability, that package was fixed as well.
Please note that many applications contain a copy of the affected XMLRPC code,
which must be fixed separately. The following packages may also be affected,
but are unsupported in Ubuntu:
- drupal
- wordpress
- phpwiki
- horde3
- ewiki
- egroupware
- phpgroupware
These packages might be fixed by the community later.
The following common third party applications are affected as well, but not packaged
for Ubuntu:
- Serendipity
- Postnuke
- tikiwiki
- phpwebsite
If you run any affected software, please upgrade them as soon as possible to
protect your server.
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package version:
- Ubuntu 5.04:
- libapache2-mod-php4
- php4-pear
- Ubuntu 4.10:
- libapache2-mod-php4
- php4-pear
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
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