GLSA 200804-18: Poppler: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code

Severity:normal
Title:Poppler: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code
Date:04/17/2008
Bugs: #216850
ID:200804-18

Synopsis

Poppler does not handle fonts inside PDF files safely, allowing for execution of arbitrary code.

Background

Poppler is a cross-platform PDF rendering library originally based on Xpdf.

Affected packages

Package Vulnerable Unaffected Architecture(s)
app-text/poppler < 0.6.3 >= 0.6.3 All supported architectures

Description

Kees Cook from the Ubuntu Security Team reported that the CairoFont::create() function in the file CairoFontEngine.cc does not verify the type of an embedded font object inside a PDF file before dereferencing a function pointer from it.

Impact

A remote attacker could entice a user to open a specially crafted PDF file with a Poppler-based PDF viewer such as Gentoo's Xpdf, Epdfview, or Evince, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Poppler users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-text/poppler-0.6.3"

References

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200804-18.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.

License

Copyright 2010 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text belongs to its owner(s). The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

Thank you!