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.

(Jan 15)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service or privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
(Jan 15)

Several vulnerabilities were discovered in OpenSSL, an implementation of TLS and related protocols. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following vulnerabilities: [More...]
(Jan 15)

Several vulnerabilities were discovered in t1lib, a Postscript Type 1 font rasterizer library, some of which might lead to code execution through the opening of files embedding bad fonts. [More...]
(Jan 20)

A double-free flaw in Logsurfer allows a remote attacker to executearbitrary code.
Mandriva: 2012:010: cacti (Jan 20)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in cacti: SQL injection vulnerability in auth_login.php in Cacti before 0.8.7h allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary SQL commands via the login_username parameter (CVE-2011-4824). [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:009: perl (Jan 18)

A vulnerability has been found and corrected in perl: Eval injection in the Digest module before 1.17 for Perl allows context-dependent attackers to execute arbitrary commands via the new constructor (CVE-2011-3597). [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:008: perl (Jan 18)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in perl: Off-by-one error in the decode_xs function in Unicode/Unicode.xs in the Encode module before 2.44, as used in Perl before 5.15.6, might allow context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:007: openssl (Jan 16)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in openssl: The DTLS implementation in OpenSSL before 0.9.8s and 1.x before 1.0.0f performs a MAC check only if certain padding is valid, which makes it easier for remote attackers to recover plaintext via a padding [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:006: openssl (Jan 16)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in openssl: The DTLS implementation in OpenSSL before 0.9.8s and 1.x before 1.0.0f performs a MAC check only if certain padding is valid, which makes it easier for remote attackers to recover plaintext via a padding [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:005: libxml2 (Jan 16)

A vulnerability has been found and corrected in libxml2: A heap-based buffer overflow in libxml2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors (CVE-2011-3919). [More...]
Mandriva: 2012:004: t1lib (Jan 12)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in t1lib: A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the way AFM font file parser, used for rendering of DVI files, in GNOME evince document viewer and other products, processed line tokens from the given input [More...]
Red Hat: 2012:0034-01: java-1.6.0-ibm: Critical Advisory (Jan 18)

Updated java-1.6.0-ibm packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Extras, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. [More...]
Red Hat: 2012:0033-01: php: Moderate Advisory (Jan 18)

Updated php packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Ubuntu: 1334-1: libxml2 vulnerabilities (Jan 19)

Applications using libxml2 could be made to crash or run programs as yourlogin if they opened a specially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 1333-1: Libav vulnerabilities (Jan 17)

Libav could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened aspecially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 1332-1: Linux kernel (Maverick backport) vulnerabilities (Jan 13)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1330-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Jan 13)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1329-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerability (Jan 13)

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.
Ubuntu: 1328-1: Linux kernel (Marvell DOVE) vulnerabilities (Jan 13)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.