XFree86 Integer Overflow Flaw Fixed

Red Hat recently announced a fix for a libXpm integer overflow flaw that affects XFree86 which the company has rated a moderate security threat. Updated XFree86 packages are now available.

XFree86 is an open source implementation of the X Window System, which provides the basic low-level functionality that full-fledged graphical user interfaces (GUIs) such as GNOME and KDE are designed upon.

An integer overflow flaw was found in libXpm, which is used by some applications for loading of XPM images. An attacker could create a malicious XPM file that would execute arbitrary code if opened by a victim using an application linked to the vulnerable library. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name
CAN-2005-0605 to this issue.

The updated XFree86 packages also address the following minor issues:

• Updated XFree86-4.3.0-k eyboard-disable-ioport-access-v3.patch to make warning messages less alarmist.
• Backported XFree86-4.3.0-libX11-stack-overflow.patch from xorg-x11-6.8.1 packaging to fix stack overflow in libX11, which was discovered by new security features of gcc4.

Users of XFree86 should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch and are not vulnerable to this issue.