Libxml2 URI Parsing Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities

Background

Description

Yuuichi Teranishi discovered a flaw in libxml2 versions prior to 2.6.6. When the libxml2 library fetches a remote resource via FTP or HTTP, libxml2 uses parsing routines that can overflow a buffer caused by improper bounds checking if they are passed a URL longer than 4096 bytes.

Impact

If an attacker is able to exploit an application using libxml2 that parses remote resources, then this flaw could be used to execute arbitrary code.

Workaround

No workaround is available; users are urged to upgrade libxml2 to 2.6.6.

Resolution

All users are recommended to upgrade their libxml2 installation:

 # emerge sync
 # emerge -pv ">=dev-libs/libxml2-2.6.6"
 # emerge ">=dev-libs/libxml2-2.6.6"