USN-147-1: PHP XMLRPC vulnerability

Releases

• Ubuntu 5.04
• Ubuntu 4.10

Details

A remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the XMLRPC module
of the PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) extension of PHP. By
sending specially crafted XMLRPC requests to an affected web server, a remote
attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the web server's
privileges.

In Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), the PEAR extension is unsupported (it is
contained in the php4-universe package which is part of universe). However,
since this is a highly critical vulnerability, that package was fixed as well.

Please note that many applications contain a copy of the affected XMLRPC code,
which must be fixed separately. The following packages may also be affected,
but are unsupported in Ubuntu:

• drupal
• wordpress
• phpwiki
• horde3
• ewiki
• egroupware
• phpgroupware

These packages might be fixed by the community later.

The following common third party applications are affected as well, but not packaged
for Ubuntu:

• Serendipity
• Postnuke
• tikiwiki
• phpwebsite

If you run any affected software, please upgrade them as soon as possible to
protect your server.

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 5.04

• libapache2-mod-php4 -
• php4-pear -

Ubuntu 4.10

• libapache2-mod-php4 -
• php4-pear -

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

References

• CVE-2005-1921