RHSA-2008:0886 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated libxml2 packages that fix various security issues are now available
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red
Hat Security Response Team.

Description

The libxml2 packages provide a library that allows you to manipulate XML
files. It includes support to read, modify, and write XML and HTML files.

A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the way libxml2 handled long
XML entity names. If an application linked against libxml2 processed
untrusted malformed XML content, it could cause the application to crash
or, possibly, execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2008-3529)

A denial of service flaw was found in the way libxml2 processed certain
content. If an application linked against libxml2 processed malformed XML
content, it could cause the application to use an excessive amount of CPU
time and memory, and stop responding. (CVE-2003-1564)

All users of libxml2 are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which contain backported patches to resolve these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 2 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 2 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 2 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 2 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 461015 - CVE-2008-3529 libxml2: long entity name heap buffer overflow
• BZ - 461107 - CVE-2003-1564 libxml2: billion laughs DoS attack

CVEs

• CVE-2008-3529
• CVE-2003-1564

References

(none)