USN-1314-1: Python 3 vulnerabilities

19 December 2011

Applications using certain Python 3 modules could be made to crash or expose sensitive information over the network.

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Releases

Packages

  • python3.1 - An interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 3.1)
  • python3.2 - An interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 3.2)

Details

Giampaolo Rodola discovered that the smtpd module in Python 3 did not
properly handle certain error conditions. A remote attacker could exploit
this to cause a denial of service via daemon outage. This issue only
affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. (CVE-2010-3493)

Niels Heinen discovered that the urllib module in Python 3 would process
Location headers that specify a file:// URL. A remote attacker could use
this to obtain sensitive information or cause a denial of service via
resource consumption. (CVE-2011-1521)

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Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 11.04
Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu 10.04

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
Daemons using the urllib or smtpd modules may also need to be restarted
after a pplying this update.