Thank you for reading the Linux Advisory Watch Security Newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's vendor security bulletins and pointers on methods to improve the security posture of your open source system. Vulnerabilities affect nearly every vendor virtually every week, so be sure to read through to find the updates your distributor have made available.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Password guessing with Medusa 2.0 - Medusa was created by the fine folks at foofus.net, in fact the much awaited Medusa 2.0 update was released in February of 2010. For a complete change log please visit

Password guessing as an attack vector - Using password guessing as an attack vector. Over the years we've been taught a strong password must be long and complex to be considered secure. Some of us have taken that notion to heart and always ensure our passwords are strong. But some don't give a second thought to the complexity or length of our password.

(Dec 16)

The tiff library for handling TIFF image files contained a stack-based buffer overflow, potentially allowing attackers who can submit such files to a vulnerable system to execute arbitrary code. [More...]
(Dec 16)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Icedove, Debian's version of the Mozilla Thunderbird mail and news client. CVE-2012-4201 [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:181: python-django (Dec 19)

Multiple host header poisoning flaws were found and fixed in Django. The updated packages have been upgraded to the 1.3.5 version which is not affected by these issues. [More...] _______________________________________________________________________
Mandriva: 2012:180: perl-CGI (Dec 17)

A vulnerability was discovered and corrected in perl-CGI: CGI.pm module before 3.63 for Perl does not properly escape newlines in (1) Set-Cookie or (2) P3P headers, which might allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary headers into responses from applications that [More...]
Red Hat: 2012:1590-01: libtiff: Moderate Advisory (Dec 18)

Updated libtiff packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2012:1589-01: kernel: Low Advisory (Dec 18)

Updated kernel packages that fix one security issue and one bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 Extended Update Support. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2012:1580-01: kernel: Moderate Advisory (Dec 18)

Updated kernel packages that fix multiple security issues, numerous bugs and add one enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Ubuntu: 1679-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerability (Dec 20)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1678-1: Linux kernel (Oneiric backport) vulnerability (Dec 20)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1677-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (Dec 20)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1676-1: AppArmor update (Dec 19)

A weakness was discovered in the example AppArmor profile forchromium-browser.
Ubuntu: 1675-1: FFmpeg vulnerabilities (Dec 19)

FFmpeg could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened aspecially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 1674-1: Libav vulnerabilities (Dec 19)

Libav could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened aspecially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 1673-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerability (Dec 18)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1671-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (Dec 18)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1670-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerability (Dec 18)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1669-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (Dec 18)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1668-1: Apport update (Dec 17)

A hardening measure was added to apport.
Ubuntu: 1667-1: bogofilter vulnerability (Dec 17)

bogofilter could be made to crash or run programs if it processed aspecially crafted email.
Ubuntu: 1589-2: GNU C Library regression (Dec 17)

USN-1589-1 exposed a regression in the GNU C Library floating point parser.
Ubuntu: 1666-1: Aptdaemon vulnerability (Dec 17)

Aptdaemon could be tricked into installing arbitrary PPA GPG keys.
Ubuntu: 1665-1: unity-firefox-extension vulnerability (Dec 13)

unity-firefox-extension could be made to expose sensitive information overthe network.