USN-2461-3: PyYAML vulnerability

12 January 2015

Applications using PyYAML could be made to crash if they received specially crafted input.

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Releases

Packages

  • pyyaml - YAML parser and emitter for Python

Details

Stanisław Pitucha and Jonathan Gray discovered that PyYAML did not
properly handle wrapped strings. An attacker could create specially
crafted YAML data to trigger an assert, causing a denial of service.

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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 14.10
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 12.04

After a standard system update you need to restart applications using
PyYAML to make all the necessary changes.

References

Related notices

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Further reading