texlive-base vulnerability

22 August 2017

texlive-base vulnerability

A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Summary

TeX Live could be made to run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted file.

Software Description

• texlive-base - TeX Live: Essential programs and files

Details

It was discovered that TeX Live incorrectly handled certain system commands. If a user were tricked into processing a specially crafted TeX file, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary code.

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

texlive-base - 2015.20160320-1ubuntu0.1

texlive-latex-base - 2015.20160320-1ubuntu0.1

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

texlive-base - 2013.20140215-1ubuntu0.1

texlive-latex-base - 2013.20140215-1ubuntu0.1

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.

References

• CVE-2016-10243