Low: glibc security, bug fix, and enhancement update
Security Advisory: Low
Updated glibc packages that fix two security issues, several bugs, and add
various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low
security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores,
which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability
from the CVE links in the References section.
The glibc packages contain the standard C libraries used by multiple
programs on the system. These packages contain the standard C and the
standard math libraries. Without these two libraries, a Linux system
cannot function properly.
A flaw was found in the way the ldd utility identified dynamically linked
libraries. If an attacker could trick a user into running ldd on a
malicious binary, it could result in arbitrary code execution with the
privileges of the user running ldd. (CVE-2009-5064)
It was found that the glibc addmntent() function, used by various mount
helper utilities, did not handle certain errors correctly when updating the
mtab (mounted file systems table) file. If such utilities had the setuid
bit set, a local attacker could use this flaw to corrupt the mtab file.
(CVE-2011-1089)
Red Hat would like to thank Dan Rosenberg for reporting the CVE-2011-1089
issue.
This update also fixes several bugs and adds various enhancements.
Documentation for these bug fixes and enhancements will be available
shortly from the Technical Notes document, linked to in the References
section.
Users are advised to upgrade to these updated glibc packages, which contain
backported patches to resolve these issues and add these enhancements.
Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.
This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259
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