14 DAY TRIAL // A vulnerability that would allow users to crash GDK-PixBuf with a specially crafted file has been found and fixed in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems.
A new security issue has been resolved and Ubuntu maintainers have updated the GDK-PixBuf package in the official repositories. We don't often see patches for this package and it's not usually a source of vulnerabilities, but these things happen from time to time. It's not a huge problem, but upgrading the operating system is always a good idea.
"Gustavo Grieco discovered that GDK-PixBuf incorrectly handled scaling bitmap images. If a user or automated system were tricked into opening a BMP image file, a remote attacker could use this flaw to cause GDK-PixBuf to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code," is noted in the security notice.
More details about this issue can be found in the initial security notice. The problem can be easily solved if users upgrade to the latest libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 package, specific to each distribution. Users can either use the automated process available in every Ubuntu version, or they can use the terminal. If they choose the terminal, they will need to enter the following commands (root is needed):
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade