USN-1588-1: Software Properties vulnerability

1 October 2012

Software Properties could be tricked into installing arbitrary PPA GPG keys.

Reduce your security exposure

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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Releases

Packages

Details

It was discovered that the apt-add-repository tool incorrectly validated
PPA GPG keys when importing from a keyserver. If a remote attacker were
able to perform a machine-in-the-middle attack, this flaw could be exploited to
install altered package repository GPG keys.

Reduce your security exposure

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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 11.10
Ubuntu 11.04
Ubuntu 10.04

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

References

Join the discussion

Need help with your security needs?

Ubuntu Pro provides up to ten-year security coverage for over 23,000 open-source packages within the Ubuntu Main and Universe repositories.

Talk to an expert to find out what would work best for you

Further reading