USN-5168-3: NSS vulnerability

1 December 2021

NSS could be made to crash or run programs if it verified a specially crafted signature.

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Releases

Packages

  • nss - Network Security Service library

Details

USN-5168-1 fixed a vulnerability in NSS. This update provides
the corresponding update for Ubuntu 14.04 ESM and Ubuntu 16.04 ESM.

Original advisory details:

Tavis Ormandy discovered that NSS incorrectly handled verifying DSA/RSA-PSS
signatures. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause NSS 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 16.04
Ubuntu 14.04

After a standard system update you need to restart any applications that
use NSS, such as Evolution, to make all the necessary changes.

References

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