USN-4700-1: PyXDG vulnerability

19 January 2021

PyXDG could be made to run programs as your login if it received specially crafted input.

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Releases

Packages

  • pyxdg - python library to access freedesktop.org standards

Details

Alexandre D'Hondt discovered that PyXDG did not properly sanitize input.
An attacker could exploit this with a crafted .menu file to execute
arbitrary code.

Reduce your security exposure

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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 18.04
Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 14.04

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References

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Further reading