Malta: Third Party Patch Roundup – September 2016

Debra Littlejohn Shinder

Autumn is in the air, the trees are displaying their finest fall colors, the weather is getting cooler, and many of us are already getting psyched up for the holidays ahead. The seasons change, but in the IT industry there's one constant: pumpkin patches won't be the only kind of patches we'll be dealing with as we head into this time of the year.

While we're in the produce section of the grocery store, try not to upset the Apple cart because you might get buried under the large number of security updates that have been released for iProducts this month. We're used to seeing only perhaps five or six actual updates, although often one will contain fixes for fifty or more vulnerabilities. This time, Apple has put out a whopping thirteen security patches as of this writing on September 28^th.

Other vendors had more typical numbers of patch releases.

Apple

Apple released only two patches in August, so I guess they're making up for that – with a vengeance – this time. The Safari web browser was updated twice, and the iOS mobile operating system got three updates in fewer than thirty days.

On September 1, Apple released two patches:

• Security update 2016-001 for OS X El Capitan and 2016-005 for OS X Yosemite. These update for the Mac OS X operating system address two kernel vulnerabilities, one of which could be exploited to disclose kernel memory and the other to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
• Safari 9.1.3 for OS X Mavericks and Yosemite. This update patches a memory corruption vulnerability that could be exploited to allow a malicious web site to execute arbitrary code.

On September 13, Apple released six patches:

• iOS 10 for iPhone 5 and above, iPad 4^th gen and above, iPod Touch 6^th gen and above. This update addresses 49 separate vulnerabilities in the mobile operating system, in components including the kernel, WebKit, Safari Reader, S2 Camera, Messages, Printing UIKit, Mail, GeoServices, FontParser, CoreCrypto, Audio, and more. It also updates the certificate trust policy.
• iOS 10.0.1 for iPhone 5 and above, iPad 4^th gen and above, iPod Touch 6^th gen and above. This update, released the same day as the above, addresses a single validation issue that could allow an application to disclose kernel memory.
• Xcode 8 for OS X Capitan and later. This update also addresses a single validation issue that could allow an application to disclose kernel memory.
• watchOS 3, all models. This update addresses nineteen vulnerabilities in Apple's smart watch operating system, which include memory corruption, input validation, memory disclosure, arbitrary code execution and other issues. Many of these are the same issues addressed in the updates for iOS and OS X.
• tvOS 10 for Apple TV 4^th This update addresses twenty-nine vulnerabilities in the operating system software for the Apple TV media device, which include many of the same issues addressed in the updates for iOS and OS X.
• iTunes 12.5.1 for Windows 7 and above. This update address eleven vulnerabilities in the WebKit component of the iTunes application for Windows, which include parsing and permissions issues, multiple memory corruption issues, a cross-protocol exploitation of non-HTTP services vulnerability, and a certificate validation issue.
• macOS Sierra 10.12 for OS X El Capitan. This update addresses sixty-five vulnerabilities in various components of Apple's latest desktop and server operating system, macOS Sierra. (macOS was previously OS X; Apple changed the name to correspond more closely to iOS). The vulnerabilities exist in many components, including apache, the Application Firewall, audio, Bluetooth, crypto and display components, FontParser, the Intel graphics driver, Kerberos, the kernel, S2 Camera, security components, Terminal, WindowServer and more. The vulnerabilities include type confusion, information disclosure, arbitrary code execution, bypass of protection mechanisms, memory corruption, out-of-bounds read issues, denial of service vulnerability, user account vulnerability, a spoofing issue, session management issues, input validation issues, and more.
• Safari 10 for OS X Yosemite, OS X El Capitan and macOS Sierra. This update addresses twenty-one vulnerabilities in the Safari web browser, which include multiple memory corruption issues, certificate validation vulnerability, cross-protocol exploitation of non-HTTP services, permissions issues, a parsing issue, a state management issue and more in Safari Reader, Safari Tabs and WebKit components.
• macOS Server 5.2 for macOS Sierra. This update addresses a pair of vulnerabilities in apache and ServerDocs Server components that include an issue in the handling of the HTTP_PROXY environment variable that could allow an attacker to proxy traffic through an arbitrary server and an RC4 cryptographic weakness.
• iCloud for Windows v6 for Windows 7 and above. This update addresses a single memory corruption vulnerability in the WebKit component of Apple's iCloud application for Windows that could be exploited to accomplish arbitrary code execution.
• iOS 10.0.2 for iPhone 5 and above, iPad 4^th gen and above, and iPod Touch 6^th gen and above. This update for Apple's mobile operating system includes the security content from iOS 10.0.1.

For more information about this and the previously issued patches and the vulnerabilities that they address, see the Apple Support web site at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

Adobe

Adobe released only one update in August, so we might have expected a deluge this time – but instead we got a pretty typical three patches, all of them originally released on their normal Patch Tuesday schedule, which this month fell on September 13.

• APSB16-28. This is an update for Adobe Digital Editions for Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android. Digital Editions (ADE) is Adobe's ebook reader software. The update addresses seven memory corruption issues and a use-after-free vulnerability, all of which could be exploited to accomplish code execution. The rating is critical.
• APSB16-29. This is an update for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Mac OS, Linux and ChromeOS. It addresses twenty-six vulnerabilities including integer overflow, use-after-free, security bypass, and memory corruption issues. Impacts include code execution and information disclosure and the rating is critical.
• APSB16-31. This is an update for Adobe AIR SDK and Compiler on Windows and Mac OS, which addresses a single vulnerability and adds support for secure transmission of runtime analytics for AIR applications on Android.

For more information about these vulnerabilities and updates, see Adobe's Security Bulletins and Advisories web site at https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html or see the individual bulletins linked in each bullet point above.

Google

On September 13^th, Google released a security update for the Chrome web browser on Windows, Mac and Linux desktop operating systems that address multiple vulnerabilities. These include two use-after-free issues in Blink, an arbitrary memory read in v8, an extension resource access issue, a popup not correctly suppressed, and a SafeBrowsing bypass issue.

For more information, see the Google Chrome Releases blog at http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com

Oracle

Oracle normally releases security updates on a quarterly cycle, in January, April, July and October, so the next regularly scheduled patch release will occur on October 18.

Mozilla

Mozilla released Firefox v49 on September 20^th, which contains four critical security fixes, ten rated as high severity, two rated with moderate severity and two rated low, for a total of eighteen vulnerabilities addressed.

• Buffer overflow when working with empty filters during canvas rendering – critical
• Potentially exploitable crash caused by buffer overflow when encoding image frames – critical
• Memory corruption issues – critical
• More memory corruption issues – critical
• Heap buffer overflow – high
• Bad cast when processing layout with input elements – high
• Potentially exploitable crash in accessibility – high
• Use-after-free vulnerability triggered by aria-owns attribute – high
• Use-after-free vulnerability in web animations during restyling – high
• Use-after-free vulnerability in web animation when destroying timeline – high
• Use-after-free when changing text direction – high
• Use-after-free when manipulating SVG content through script – high
• Timing attack vulnerability using iframes – high
• Add-on update site certification pin expiration – high
• Full path to local files available to scripts – moderate
• Favicons can be loaded through non-whitelisted protocols – moderate
• Content security policy containing referrer directive with no values can cause crash – low
• Out-of-bounds read during processing of text runs – low

For more information about those vulnerabilities and fixes, and to check for new version releases, see Mozilla's web site at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/

Linux

Popular Linux distros, as usual, have seen a number of security advisories and updates this month. As of the date of this writing (September 28), Ubuntu has issued twenty-eight security notices this month, which is fewer than usual. Many of these address multiple vulnerabilities and in some cases there are multiple advisories for the same vulnerabilities. Other commercial Linux vendors issued a similar number of updates. Here are the Ubuntu security advisories for September:

• USN-3093-1: ClamAV vulnerabilities – 28th September 2016. It was discovered that ClamAV incorrectly handled certain malformed files. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause ClamAV to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code. In the default installation, attackers would be isolated by the ClamAV AppArmor profile.
• USN-3092-1: Samba vulnerability – 28th September 2016. Stefan Metzmacher discovered that Samba incorrectly handled certain flags in SMB2/3 client connections. A remote attacker could use this issue to disable client signing and impersonate servers by performing a man in the middle attack. Samba has been updated to 4.3.11 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
• USN-3090-1: Pillow vulnerabilities – 27th September 2016. It was discovered that a flaw in processing a compressed text chunk in a PNG image could cause the image to have a large size when decompressed, potentially leading to a denial of service.
• USN-3088-1: Bind vulnerability – 27th September 2016. It was discovered that Bind incorrectly handled building responses to certain specially crafted requests. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Bind to crash, resulting in a denial of service.
• USN-3089-1: Django vulnerability – 27th September 2016. Sergey Bobrov discovered that Django incorrectly parsed cookies when being used with Google Analytics. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to set arbitrary cookies leading to a CSRF protection bypass.
• USN-3087-2: OpenSSL regression – 23rd September 2016. USN-3087-1 fixed vulnerabilities in OpenSSL. The fix for CVE-2016-2182 was incomplete and caused a regression when parsing certificates. This update fixes the problem.
• USN-3087-1: OpenSSL vulnerabilities – 22nd September 2016. Shi Lei discovered that OpenSSL incorrectly handled the OCSP Status Request extension. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause memory consumption, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2016-6304) Guido Vranken discovered that OpenSSL used undefined behaviour when performing pointer arithmetic.
• USN-3073-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities – 22nd September 2016. Christian Holler, Carsten Book, Gary Kwong, Jesse Ruderman, Andrew McCreight, and Phil Ringnalda discovered multiple memory safety issues in Thunderbird. If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted message, an attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code.
• USN-3076-1: Firefox vulnerabilities – 22nd September 2016. Atte Kettunen discovered an out-of-bounds read when handling certain Content Security Policy (CSP) directives in some circumstances. If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted website, an attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service via application crash.
• USN-3085-1: GDK-PixBuf vulnerabilities – 21st September 2016. It was discovered that the GDK-PixBuf library did not properly handle specially crafted bmp images, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow. If a user or automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted bmp file, a remote attacker could use this flaw to cause GDK-PixBuf to crash.
• USN-3086-1: Irssi vulnerabilities – 21st September 2016. Gabriel Campana and Adrien Guinet discovered that the format parsing code in Irssi did not properly verify 24bit color codes. A remote attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (application crash).
• USN-3084-4: Linux kernel (Qualcomm Snapdragon) vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. Pengfei Wang discovered a race condition in the audit subsystem in the Linux kernel. A local attacker could use this to corrupt audit logs or disrupt system-call auditing.
• USN-3084-3: Linux kernel (Raspberry Pi 2) vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. Pengfei Wang discovered a race condition in the audit subsystem in the Linux kernel. A local attacker could use this to corrupt audit logs or disrupt system-call auditing.
• USN-3084-2: Linux kernel (Xenial HWE) vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. USN-3084-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. This update provides the corresponding updates for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Pengfei Wang discovered a race condition in the audit subsystem in the Linux kernel.
• USN-3084-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. Pengfei Wang discovered a race condition in the audit subsystem in the Linux kernel. A local attacker could use this to corrupt audit logs or disrupt system-call auditing.
• USN-3083-2: Linux kernel (Trusty HWE) vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. USN-3083-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. This update provides the corresponding updates for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Dmitry Vyukov discovered that the IPv6 implementation in the Linux kernel did not properly handle options data.
• USN-3083-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities – 19th September 2016. Dmitry Vyukov discovered that the IPv6 implementation in the Linux kernel did not properly handle options data, including a use-after-free. A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
• USN-3082-2: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerability – 19th September 2016. Chiachih Wu, Yuan-Tsung Lo, and Xuxian Jiang discovered that the legacy ABI for ARM (OABI) had incomplete access checks for epoll_wait(2) and semtimedop(2). A local attacker could use this to possibly execute arbitrary code.
• USN-3082-1: Linux kernel vulnerability – 19th September 2016. Chiachih Wu, Yuan-Tsung Lo, and Xuxian Jiang discovered that the legacy ABI for ARM (OABI) had incomplete access checks for epoll_wait(2) and semtimedop(2). A local attacker could use this to possibly execute arbitrary code.
• USN-3081-1: Tomcat vulnerability – 19th September 2016. Dawid Golunski discovered that the Tomcat init script incorrectly handled creating log files. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain root privileges. (CVE-2016-1240) This update also reverts a change in behaviour introduced in USN-3024-1 by setting mapperContextRootRedirectEnabled to True by default.
• USN-3080-1: Python Imaging Library vulnerabilities – 15th September 2016. Eric Soroos discovered that the Python Imaging Library incorrectly handled certain malformed FLI or PhotoCD files. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause Python Imaging Library to crash, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2016-0775, CVE-2016-2533) Andrew Drake discovered that the Python Imaging Libray incorrectly validated input.
• USN-3058-1: Oxide vulnerabilities – 14th September 2016. An issue was discovered in Blink involving the provisional URL for an initially empty document. An attacker could potentially exploit this to spoof the currently displayed URL. (CVE-2016-5141) A use-after-free was discovered in the WebCrypto implementation in Blink.
• USN-3079-1: WebKitGTK+ vulnerabilities – 14th September 2016. A large number of security issues were discovered in the WebKitGTK+ Web and JavaScript engines. If a user were tricked into viewing a malicious website, a remote attacker could exploit a variety of issues related to web browser security, including cross-site scripting attacks, denial of service attacks, and arbitrary code execution.
• USN-3078-1: MySQL vulnerability – 13th September 2016. Dawid Golunski discovered that MySQL incorrectly handled configuration files. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. MySQL has been updated to 5.5.52 in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has been updated to MySQL 5.7.15.
• USN-3077-1: OpenJDK 6 vulnerabilities – 12th September 2016. A vulnerability was discovered in the OpenJDK JRE related to data integrity. An attacker could exploit this to expose sensitive data over the network or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2016-3458) Multiple vulnerabilities were discovered in the OpenJDK JRE related to availability.
• USN-3075-1: Imlib2 vulnerabilities – 8th September 2016. Jakub Wilk discovered an out of bounds read in the GIF loader implementation in Imlib2. An attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly obtain sensitive information. (CVE-2016-3994) Yuriy M. Kaminskiy discovered an off-by-one error when handling coordinates in Imlib2.
• USN-3074-1: File Roller vulnerability – 8th September 2016. It was discovered that File Roller incorrectly handled symlinks. If a user were tricked into extracting a specially-crafted archive, an attacker could delete files outside of the extraction directory.

For more information about any of these patches, visit the Ubuntu web site at http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/

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