USN-1654-1: CUPS vulnerability

5 December 2012

CUPS could be made to read files or run programs as an administrator.

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Releases

Packages

  • cups - Common UNIX Printing System(tm)
  • cupsys - Common UNIX Printing System(tm)

Details

It was discovered that users in the lpadmin group could modify certain CUPS
configuration options to escalate privileges. An attacker could use this to
potentially gain root privileges.

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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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 8.04
Ubuntu 12.10
Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 11.10
Ubuntu 10.04

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

This update adds the new cups-files.conf configuration file for privileged
CUPS settings. In certain customized environments, these settings may need
to be manually moved to this new file. For more information, please see the
updated documentation installed with this package and inspect the CUPS
error log.

References