Third Party Patch Roundup – July 2016 - Security

Authored by Debra Littlejohn Shinder

As we wrap up this month and head into August, summer is more than halfway gone. It's been a long, hot one here in Texas and in many other areas of the U.S. and the world, so we're all looking forward to a little relief in the not-too-distant future.

In the IT world, we would also appreciate some relief from the never-ending flood of new vulnerabilities and exploits and the need to apply patches to fix the issues. Unfortunately, hunting for new ways to get into networks and steal data or take down systems is not a seasonal activity; the bad guys are always hard at work trying to circumvent security mechanisms that are built into our software. That means there's no rest for the weary IT pro.

Now let's take a look at the details of some of this month's patches from major third party security vendors. The following applies as of the date of this writing, which is June 28.

Apple

Apple seems to be on a light/heavy schedule. After a large number of patches in May, they released only one in June. That means we were expecting another deluge this month, and we got it: seven patches spanning their desktop, mobile, watch and TV operating systems as well as the iCloud, iTunes and Safari products.

All of the following were released on July 18:

OS X El Capitan v10.11.6 and Security Update 2016-004 – addresses more than 60 different vulnerabilities in various operating system components, including the OS kernel, graphics drivers and components, audio components, FaceTime, QuickTime, Apache, OpenSSL, and more. The most serious of these can be exploited to accomplish remote code execution.
iOS 9.3.3 – addresses more than 40 different vulnerabilities in various operating system components, including the Kernel, as well as in Calendar, CoreGraphics, FaceTime, Safari, Siri Contacts, Sandbox Profiles, WebKit and more. The most serious of these can be exploited to accomplish remote code execution.
watchOS 2.2.2 – addresses more than 20 vulnerabilities in various operating system components, including the OS kernel, graphics components, Sandbox Profiles and more. Impacts include information disclosure, remote denial of service attack, and the most serious can be exploited to accomplish remote code execution.
tvOS 9.2.2 – addresses more than 30 vulnerabilities in various operating system components, including the OS kernel, graphics components, Sandbox Profiles and more. These include denial of service, information leak, and the most serious of these can be exploited to accomplish remote code execution.
Safari 9.1.2 – addresses 12 vulnerabilities in the Safari web browser, most of them in the WebKit component. The most serious of these can be exploited to accomplish remote code execution.
iTunes 12.4.2 for Windows – addresses 15 vulnerabilities in the iTunes for Windows application software, most of them being memory corruption issues. The update is available for Windows 7 and later.
iCloud for Windows 5.2.1 – addresses 15 vulnerabilities in the iCloud for Windows software, most of them being memory corruption issues. The update is available for Windows 7 and later.

For more information about this and the previously issued patches and the vulnerabilities that they address, see the Apple Support web site at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

Adobe

Adobe had an average month, with the issuance of three security updates that address vulnerabilities in their most popular software (Acrobat/Reader and Flash Player) as well as one of their developer tools.

On July 7, Adobe released APSB16-26, which contains security updates for Adobe Acrobat and Reader running on Windows and Mac, to address thirty vulnerabilities. It is rated critical and given a priority rating of 2 on both platforms.

Both of the following were released on their regular Patch Tuesday release schedule, on July 12:

APSB16-25 addresses 52 vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player running on Windows, Mac, Linux and ChromeOS. It is rated critical and has a priority rating of 1 on all except Adobe Flash Player for Linux, which is assigned a priority rating of 3.
APSB16-24 addresses a single vulnerability in Adobe XMP Toolkit for Java, which can lead to information disclosure. It is rated important and has a priority rating of 3.

For more information about these vulnerabilities and updates, see Adobe's Security Bulletins and Advisories web site at https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html or see the individual bulletins linked in each bullet point above.

Google

In July, Google issued multiple security updates for Android that address a total of 108 vulnerabilities. These were released in two "patch level strings," one on July 1 and one on July 5. Two of the issues in the July 1 string are rated critical and there are seven critical issues in the July 5 string. The critical issues include remote code execution vulnerabilities and elevation of privilege vulnerabilities.

For more information, see the Android Security Bulletin – July 2016 at https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-07-01.html

On July 21, Google released Chrome v. 52.0.2743.82 to address multiple vulnerabilities for Windows, Mac and Linux. Exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities may allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected system.

For more information, see the Google Chrome Releases blog at http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com

Oracle

Oracle normally releases security updates on a quarterly cycle, in January, April, July and October. On July 15, they issued a Critical Patch Update that addresses 276 new vulnerability fixes across all of their product families, including Oracle Java SE as well as many enterprise products. For more information, see the Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory – July 2016 at
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/security-advisory/cpujul2016-2881720.html

Mozilla

As of this writing (July 28, 2016), Mozilla has not released a new version of Firefox since v. 47, which was released in June and included 13 security fixes.

For more information about those vulnerabilities and fixes, and to check for new version releases, see Mozilla's web site at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/

Linux

Popular Linux distros, as usual, have seen a number of security advisories and updates this month. As of the date of this writing (June 28) Ubuntu has issued 24 security notices, which is a relatively low number in comparison to most recent months. Many of these address multiple vulnerabilities and in some cases there are multiple advisories for the same vulnerabilities. Other commercial Linux vendors issued a similar number of updates.

USN-3043-1: OpenJDK 8 vulnerabilities – July 27

Multiple vulnerabilities were discovered in the OpenJDK JRE related to information disclosure, data integrity, and availability. An attacker could exploit these to cause a denial of service, expose sensitive data over the network, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

USN-3042-1: KDE-Libs vulnerability – July 26

Andreas Cord-Landwehr discovered that KDE-Libs incorrectly handled extracting certain archives. If a user were tricked into extracting a specially crafted archive, a remote attacker could use this issue to overwrite arbitrary files out of the extraction directory.

USN-3040-1: MySQL vulnerabilities – July 21

Multiple security issues were discovered in MySQL and this update includes new upstream MySQL versions to fix these issues. MySQL has been updated to 5.5.50 in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Ubuntu 15.10 has been updated to MySQL 5.6.31. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS has been updated to MySQL 5.7.13.

USN-3039-1: Django vulnerability – July 19

It was discovered that Django incorrectly handled the admin's add/change related popup. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to perform a cross-site scripting attack.

USN-3038-1: Apache HTTP Server vulnerability – July 18

It was discovered that the Apache HTTP Server would set the HTTP_PROXY environment variable based on the contents of the Proxy header from HTTP requests. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue in combination with CGI scripts that honour the HTTP_PROXY variable to redirect outgoing HTTP requests.

USN-3023-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities – July 18

It was discovered that NSPR incorrectly handled memory allocation. If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted message, an attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code.

USN-3037-1: Linux kernel (Vivid HWE) vulnerability – July 14

Jan Stancek discovered that the Linux kernel's memory manager did not properly handle moving pages mapped by the asynchronous I/O (AIO) ring buffer to the other nodes. A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash).

USN-3036-1: Linux kernel (Utopic HWE) vulnerability – July 14

USN-3035-3: Linux kernel (Wily HWE) vulnerability – July 14

USN-3035-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel for Ubuntu 15.10. This update provides the corresponding updates for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel from Ubuntu 15.10 for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Jan Stancek discovered that the Linux kernel's memory manager did not properly handle moving pages mapped by the asynchronous I/O.

USN-3035-2: Linux kernel (Raspberry Pi 2) vulnerability – July 14

USN-3035-1: Linux kernel vulnerability – July 14

USN-3034-2: Linux kernel (Trusty HWE) vulnerability – July 14

USN-3034-1 fixed a vulnerability in the Linux kernel for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. This update provides the corresponding updates for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

USN-3034-1: Linux kernel vulnerability – July 14

USN-3033-1: libarchive vulnerabilities – July 14

Hanno Böck discovered that libarchive contained multiple security issues when processing certain malformed archive files. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause libarchive to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

USN-3032-1: eCryptfs vulnerability – July 14

It was discovered that eCryptfs incorrectly configured the encrypted swap partition for certain drive types. An attacker could use this issue to discover sensitive information.

USN-3031-1: Pidgin vulnerabilities – July 12

Yves Younan discovered that Pidgin contained multiple issues in the MXit protocol support. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause Pidgin to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

USN-3030-1: GD library vulnerabilities – July 11

It was discovered that the GD library incorrectly handled memory when using gdImageScaleTwoPass(). A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. (CVE-2013-7456) It was discovered that the GD library incorrectly handled certain malformed XBM images.

USN-3029-1: NSS vulnerability – July 11

Tyson Smith and Jed Davis discovered that NSS incorrectly handled memory. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause NSS to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code. This update refreshes the NSS package to version 3.23 which includes the latest CA certificate bundle.

USN-3028-1: NSPR vulnerability – July 11

It was discovered that NSPR incorrectly handled memory allocation. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause NSPR to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

USN-3027-1: Tomcat vulnerability – July 6

It was discovered that the Tomcat Fileupload library incorrectly handled certain upload requests. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service.

USN-3026-2: libusbmuxd vulnerability – July 5

It was discovered that libusbmuxd incorrectly handled socket permissions. A remote attacker could use this issue to access services on iOS devices, contrary to expectations.

USN-3026-1: libimobiledevice vulnerability – July 5

It was discovered that libimobiledevice incorrectly handled socket permissions. A remote attacker could use this issue to access services on iOS devices, contrary to expectations.

USN-3025-1: GIMP vulnerability – July 5

It was discovered that GIMP incorrectly handled malformed XCF files. If a user were tricked into opening a specially crafted XCF file, an attacker could cause GIMP to crash, or possibly execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.

USN-3024-1: Tomcat vulnerabilities – July 5

It was discovered that Tomcat incorrectly handled pathnames used by web applications in a getResource, getResourceAsStream, or getResourcePaths call. A remote attacker could use this issue to possibly list a parent directory . This issue only affected Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 15.10.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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