USN-7340-1: OpenVPN vulnerabilities

11 March 2025

Several security issues were fixed in OpenVPN.

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Releases

Packages

  • openvpn - virtual private network software

Details

It was discovered that OpenVPN did not perform proper input validation
when generating a TLS key under certain configuration, which could lead to
a buffer overflow. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a
denial of service or execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. (CVE-2017-12166)

Reynir Björnsson discovered that OpenVPN incorrectly handled certain
control channel messages with nonprintable characters. A remote attacker
could possibly use this issue to cause OpenVPN to consume resources, or
fill up log files with garbage, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2024-5594)

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.

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