USN-4746-1: xterm vulnerability

24 February 2021

xterm could be made to crash or run programs if it handled specially crafted character sequences.

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Releases

Packages

  • xterm - X terminal emulator

Details

Tavis Ormandy discovered that xterm incorrectly handled certain character
sequences. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause xterm to crash,
resulting in 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 20.10
Ubuntu 20.04
Ubuntu 18.04
Ubuntu 16.04

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

References

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Further reading