formail could be made to crash or run programs if it processed specially crafted mail.
Tavis Ormandy discovered that the formail tool incorrectly handled certain malformed mail headers. An attacker could use this flaw to cause formail to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.
4 September 2014
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
formail could be made to crash or run programs if it processed specially crafted mail.
Tavis Ormandy discovered that the formail tool incorrectly handled certain malformed mail headers. An attacker could use this flaw to cause formail to crash, resulting in a denial of service, 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.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.