USN-1616-1: Python 3.1 vulnerabilities

Releases

• Ubuntu 11.04
• Ubuntu 10.04

Packages

• python3.1 - An interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 3.1)

Details

It was discovered that Python would prepend an empty string to sys.path
under certain circumstances. A local attacker with write access to the
current working directory could exploit this to execute arbitrary code.
This issue only affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. (CVE-2008-5983)

It was discovered that the audioop module did not correctly perform input
validation. If a user or automatated system were tricked into opening a
crafted audio file, an attacker could cause a denial of service via
application crash. These issues only affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
(CVE-2010-1634, CVE-2010-2089)

It was discovered that Python distutils contained a race condition when
creating the ~/.pypirc file. A local attacker could exploit this to obtain
sensitive information. (CVE-2011-4944)

It was discovered that SimpleXMLRPCServer did not properly validate its
input when handling HTTP POST requests. A remote attacker could exploit
this to cause a denial of service via excessive CPU utilization.
(CVE-2012-0845)

It was discovered that Python was susceptible to hash algorithm attacks.
An attacker could cause a denial of service under certian circumstances.
This update adds the '-R' command line option and honors setting the
PYTHONHASHSEED environment variable to 'random' to salt str and datetime
objects with an unpredictable value. (CVE-2012-1150)

Serhiy Storchaka discovered that the UTF16 decoder in Python did not
properly reset internal variables after error handling. An attacker could
exploit this to cause a denial of service via memory corruption.
(CVE-2012-2135)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 11.04

• python3.1-minimal - 3.1.3-1ubuntu1.2
• python3.1 - 3.1.3-1ubuntu1.2

Ubuntu 10.04

• python3.1-minimal - 3.1.2-0ubuntu3.2
• python3.1 - 3.1.2-0ubuntu3.2

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

References

• CVE-2008-5983
• CVE-2010-1634
• CVE-2010-2089
• CVE-2011-4944
• CVE-2012-0845
• CVE-2012-1150
• CVE-2012-2135

Related notices

• USN-1613-1: python2.5, python2.5-minimal
• USN-1613-2: python2.4, python2.4-minimal
• USN-1596-1: python2.6-minimal, python2.6
• USN-1592-1: python2.7-minimal, python2.7
• USN-1615-1: python3.2, python3.2-minimal