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:

Securing a Linux Web Server - With the significant prevalence of Linux web servers globally, security is often touted as a strength of the platform for such a purpose. However, a Linux based web server is only as secure as its configuration and very often many are quite vulnerable to compromise. While specific configurations vary wildly due to environments or specific use, there are various general steps that can be taken to insure basic security considerations are in place.

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

(Dec 4)

Charlie Somerville discovered that Ruby incorrectly handled floating point number conversion. If an application using Ruby accepted untrusted input strings and converted them to floating point numbers, an attacker able to provide such input could cause the application to crash or, [More...]
(Dec 4)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the interpreter for the Ruby language. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
(Dec 3)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in OpenJPEG, a JPEG 2000 image library, that may lead to denial of service (CVE-2013-1447) via application crash or high memory consumption, possible code execution through heap buffer overflows (CVE-2013-6045), information disclosure [More...]
(Nov 30)

Mikulas Patocka discovered an integer overflow in the parsing of HTML tables in the Links web browser. This can only be exploited when running Links in graphical mode. [More...]
(Nov 29)

It was discovered that nbd-server, the server for the Network Block Device protocol, did incorrect parsing of the access control lists, allowing access to any hosts with an IP address sharing a prefix with an allowed address. [More...]
(Dec 6)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in SWI-Prolog which allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Dec 2)

An integer overflow in libtheora might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Dec 2)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in OpenSSL allowing remote attackers to determine private keys or cause a Denial of Service.
(Dec 2)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in BusyBox, allowing remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Dec 2)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in GNU C Library, the worst of which allowing arbitrary code execution and privilege escalation.
(Nov 28)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Namazu, worst of which allows remote attackers to cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Nov 28)

A heap-based buffer overflow in cpio might allow a remote rmt server to execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Nov 28)

A heap-based buffer overflow in Okular might allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service condition.
(Nov 28)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in rssh, allowing local attackers to bypass access restrictions.
(Nov 28)

Multiple Denial of Service vulnerabilities have been found in Unbound.
(Nov 28)

Multiple vulnerabilities were found in Perl, the worst of which could allow a local attacker to cause a Denial of Service condition.
Red Hat: 2013:1791-01: nss and nspr: Important Advisory (Dec 5)

Updated nss and nspr packages that fix multiple security issues, several bugs, and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1790-01: kernel: Moderate Advisory (Dec 5)

Updated kernel packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1783-01: kernel: Important Advisory (Dec 5)

Updated kernel packages that fix three security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 Extended Update Support. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1779-01: mod_nss: Moderate Advisory (Dec 3)

An updated mod_nss package that fixes one security issue is 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: 2013:1778-01: gimp: Moderate Advisory (Dec 3)

Updated gimp packages that fix three 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...]
(Dec 6)

New mozilla-thunderbird packages are available for Slackware 13.37, 14.0, 14.1, and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
(Dec 6)

New mozilla-nss packages are available for Slackware 14.0, 14.1, and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
(Dec 6)

New seamonkey packages are available for Slackware 14.0, 14.1, and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
(Dec 6)

New hplip packages are available for Slackware 14.0 to fix a security issue. [More Info...]
Ubuntu: 2048-2: curl regression (Dec 6)

USN-2048-1 introduced a regression in curl.
Ubuntu: 2048-1: curl vulnerability (Dec 5)

Fraudulent security certificates could allow sensitive information tobe exposed when accessing the Internet.
Ubuntu: 2046-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2047-1: pixman vulnerability (Dec 3)

pixman could be made to crash if it opened a specially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 2045-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2044-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2041-1: Linux kernel (Raring HWE) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2042-1: Linux kernel (Saucy HWE) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2043-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2040-1: Linux kernel (Quantal HWE) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2039-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2036-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2038-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 2037-1: Linux kernel (EC2) vulnerabilities (Dec 3)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.