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CUPS Exploit Closed in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

Upgrading the operating system regularly is a good idea

Feb 27, 2015 18:11 GMT  ·  By
Ubuntu 14.10 desktop
   Ubuntu 14.10 desktop

Details about a CUPS vulnerability in its Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating systems have been revealed by Canonical. Even if it is not a major problem, users should still upgrade as soon as possible.

The CUPS package has been upgraded in order to correct a vulnerability that could have caused CUPS to crash or run programs if it processed a specially crafted file. CUPS stands for Common UNIX Printing System.

"Peter De Wachter discovered that CUPS incorrectly handled certain malformed compressed raster files. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause CUPS to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code," reads the security notice.

The problem can be fixed by upgrading the system(s) to the latest CUPS package, specific to each distribution. To apply the patch, run the Update Manager application.

If you don't want to use the Software Updater, you can do this from a terminal. Open a terminal and enter the following commands:

code
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes. It's not necessary to reboot the system in order to complete the updating process. That is usually done for just a small number of core packages, like the Linux kernel for example.