USN-2477-1: libevent vulnerability

19 January 2015

libevent could be made to crash or run programs if it processed specially crafted data.

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Releases

Packages

  • libevent - Asynchronous event notification library

Details

Andrew Bartlett discovered that libevent incorrectly handled large inputs
to the evbuffer API. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue with
an application that uses libevent to cause a denial of service, or possibly
execute arbitrary code.

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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.

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.10
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 10.04

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

References

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Further reading