USN-5448-1: ncurses vulnerabilities

26 May 2022

Several security issues were fixed in ncurses.

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Releases

Packages

  • ncurses - shared libraries for terminal handling (32-bit)

Details

It was discovered that ncurses was not properly checking array bounds
when executing the fmt_entry function, which could result in an
out-of-bounds write. An attacker could possibly use this issue to
execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2017-10684)

It was discovered that ncurses was not properly checking user input,
which could result in it being treated as a format argument. An
attacker could possibly use this issue to expose sensitive
information or to execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2017-10685)

It was discovered that ncurses was incorrectly performing memory
management operations and was not blocking access attempts to
illegal memory locations. An attacker could possibly use this issue
to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2017-11112, CVE-2017-13729,
CVE-2017-13730, CVE-2017-13731, CVE-2017-13732, CVE-2017-13733,
CVE-2017-13734)

It was discovered that ncurses was not properly performing checks
on pointer values before attempting to access the related memory
locations, which could lead to NULL pointer dereferencing. An
attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service.
(CVE-2017-11113)

It was discovered that ncurses was incorrectly handling loops in
libtic, which could lead to the execution of an infinite loop. An
attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service.
(CVE-2017-13728)

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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

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

References

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Further reading