libexif: Buffer overflow vulnerability — GLSA 200503-17

libexif fails to validate certain inputs, making it vulnerable to buffer overflows.

Affected packages

media-libs/libexif on all architectures
Affected versions < 0.5.12-r1
Unaffected versions >= 0.5.12-r1

Background

libexif is a library for parsing, editing and saving EXIF data.

Description

libexif contains a buffer overflow vulnerability in the EXIF tag validation code. When opening an image with a specially crafted EXIF tag, the lack of validation can cause applications linked to libexif to crash.

Impact

A specially crafted EXIF file could crash applications making use of libexif, potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All libexif users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=media-libs/libexif-0.5.12-r1"

References

Release date
March 12, 2005

Latest revision
March 12, 2005: 01

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries