USN-135-1: gdb vulnerabilities

Releases

• Ubuntu 5.04
• Ubuntu 4.10

Details

Tavis Ormandy found an integer overflow in the GNU debugger. By
tricking an user into merely load a specially crafted executable, an
attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the
privileges of the user running gdb. However, loading untrusted
binaries without actually executing them is rather uncommon, so the
risk of this flaw is low. (CAN-2005-1704)

Tavis Ormandy also discovered that gdb loads and executes the file
".gdbinit" in the current directory even if the file belongs to a
different user. By tricking an user into run gdb in a directory with a
malicious .gdbinit file, a local attacker could exploit this to run
arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user invoking gdb.
(CAN-2005-1705)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 5.04

• gdb -

Ubuntu 4.10

• gdb -

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

References

• CVE-2005-1704
• CVE-2005-1705

Related notices

• USN-136-1: binutils-multiarch, binutils