USN-1589-1 exposed a regression in the GNU C Library floating point parser.
USN-1589-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the GNU C Library. One of the updates exposed a regression in the floating point parser. This update fixes the problem.
17 December 2012
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
USN-1589-1 exposed a regression in the GNU C Library floating point parser.
USN-1589-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the GNU C Library. One of the updates exposed a regression in the floating point parser. This update fixes the problem.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Original advisory details:
It was discovered that positional arguments to the printf() family of functions were not handled properly in the GNU C Library. An attacker could possibly use this to cause a stack-based buffer overflow, creating a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2012-3404, CVE-2012-3405, CVE-2012-3406)
It was discovered that multiple integer overflows existed in the strtod(), strtof() and strtold() functions in the GNU C Library. An attacker could possibly use this to trigger a stack-based buffer overflow, creating a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2012-3480)
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