file - security update

Multiple security issues have been found in file, a tool/library to
determine a file type. Processing a malformed file could result in
denial of service. Most of the changes are related to parsing ELF
files.

As part of the fixes, several limits on aspects of the detection were
added or tightened, sometimes resulting in messages like recursion
limit exceeded or too many program header sections.

To mitigate such shortcomings, these limits are controllable by a new

• -P, --parameter option in the file program.

For the stable distribution (wheezy), these problems have been fixed in
version 5.11-2+deb7u7.

For the upcoming stable distribution (jessie), these problems will be
fixed soon.

For the unstable distribution (sid), these problems have been fixed in
version 1:5.21+15-1.

We recommend that you upgrade your file packages.