Debian Security Advisory

DSA-2218-1 vlc -- heap-based buffer overflow

Date Reported:
12 Apr 2011
Affected Packages:
vlc
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
No other external database security references currently available.
More information:

Aliz Hammond discovered that the MP4 decoder plugin of VLC, a multimedia player and streamer, is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow. This has been introduced by a wrong data type being used for a size calculation. An attacker could use this flaw to trick a victim into opening a specially crafted MP4 file and possibly execute arbitrary code or crash the media player.

The oldstable distribution (lenny) is not affected by this problem.

For the stable distribution (squeeze), this problem has been fixed in version 1.1.3-1squeeze5.

For the testing distribution (wheezy), this problem will be fixed soon.

For the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 1.1.8-3.

We recommend that you upgrade your vlc packages.