Applications using libxml2 could be made to crash or run programs as your login if they opened a specially crafted file.
It was discovered that libxml2 had a heap-based buffer underflow when parsing entities. If a user or automated system were tricked into processing a specially crafted XML document, applications linked against libxml2 could be made to crash or possibly execute arbitrary code.
6 December 2012
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Applications using libxml2 could be made to crash or run programs as your login if they opened a specially crafted file.
It was discovered that libxml2 had a heap-based buffer underflow when parsing entities. If a user or automated system were tricked into processing a specially crafted XML document, applications linked against libxml2 could be made to crash or possibly execute arbitrary code.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to make all the necessary changes.
Vulmon