Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1541-1
16th August, 2012
libotr vulnerability
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 11.10
- Ubuntu 11.04
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Summary
Applications using Off-the-Record messaging plugins could be made to crash or run programs if it received specially crafted network messages.
Software description
- libotr - Off-the-Record Messaging library
Details
Justin Ferguson discovered multiple heap overflows in libotr. A remote
attacker could use this to craft a malformed OTR message that could
cause a denial of service via application crash or possibly execute
arbitrary code.
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package version:
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
- libotr2 3.2.0-4ubuntu0.1
- Ubuntu 11.10:
- libotr2 3.2.0-2.1ubuntu0.1
- Ubuntu 11.04:
- libotr2 3.2.0-2ubuntu1.1
- Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
- libotr2 3.2.0-2ubuntu0.1
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
After a standard system update you need to restart any instant
messaging applications using an Off-the-Record messaging plugin to
make all the necessary changes.