RHSA-2011:1161 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated freetype packages that fix one security issue are now available for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in
the References section.

Description

FreeType is a free, high-quality, portable font engine that can open and
manage font files. It also loads, hints, and renders individual glyphs
efficiently. These packages provide both the FreeType 1 and FreeType 2 font
engines.

A buffer overflow flaw was found in the way the FreeType library handled
malformed font files compressed using UNIX compress. If a user loaded a
specially-crafted compressed font file with an application linked against
FreeType, it could cause the application to crash or, possibly, execute
arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.
(CVE-2011-2895)

Note: This issue only affects the FreeType 2 font engine.

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a
backported patch to correct this issue. The X server must be restarted (log
out, then log back in) for this update to take effect.

Solution

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

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 727624 - CVE-2011-2895 BSD compress LZW decoder buffer overflow

CVEs

• CVE-2011-2895

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate