Debian Long Term Support / LTS Security Information / 2016 / Security Information -- DLA-535-1 xerces-c

Debian Security Advisory

DLA-535-1 xerces-c -- LTS security update

Date Reported:

29 Jun 2016

Affected Packages:

xerces-c

Vulnerable:

Yes

Security database references:

In the Debian bugtracking system: Bug 828990.
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2016-4463.

More information:

Brandon Perry discovered that xerces-c, a validating XML parser library for C++, fails to successfully parse a DTD that is deeply nested, causing a stack overflow. A remote unauthenticated attacker can take advantage of this flaw to cause a denial of service against applications using the xerces-c library.

Additionally this update includes an enhancement to enable applications to fully disable DTD processing through the use of an environment variable (XERCES_DISABLE_DTD).

For Debian 7 Wheezy, these problems have been fixed in version 3.1.1-3+deb7u4.

We recommend that you upgrade your xerces-c packages.

Further information about Debian LTS security advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS