Poppler: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Advisory Reference	GLSA 200804-18 / poppler
Release Date	April 17, 2008
Latest Revision	April 17, 2008: 02
Impact	normal
Exploitable	remote

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
app-text/poppler	< 0.6.3	>= 0.6.3	All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #216850

Synopsis

Poppler does not handle fonts inside PDF files safely, allowing for execution of arbitrary code.

2. Impact Information

Background

Poppler is a cross-platform PDF rendering library originally based on Xpdf.

Description

Kees Cook from the Ubuntu Security Team reported that the CairoFont::create() function in the file CairoFontEngine.cc does not verify the type of an embedded font object inside a PDF file before dereferencing a function pointer from it.

Impact

A remote attacker could entice a user to open a specially crafted PDF file with a Poppler-based PDF viewer such as Gentoo's Xpdf, Epdfview, or Evince, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

3. Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Poppler users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-text/poppler-0.6.3"

4. References

CVE-2008-1693

Updated April 17, 2008

Summary: This is a Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

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