USN-1586-1: Emacs vulnerabilities

Releases

• Ubuntu 12.04
• Ubuntu 11.10

Packages

• emacs23 - The GNU Emacs editor (with GTK+ user interface)

Details

Hiroshi Oota discovered that Emacs incorrectly handled search paths. If a
user were tricked into opening a file with Emacs, a local attacker could
execute arbitrary Lisp code with the privileges of the user invoking the
program. (CVE-2012-0035)

Paul Ling discovered that Emacs incorrectly handled certain eval forms in
local-variable sections. If a user were tricked into opening a specially
crafted file with Emacs, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary Lisp
code with the privileges of the user invoking the program. (CVE-2012-3479)

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 12.04

• emacs23-common - 23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
• emacs23 - 23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1

Ubuntu 11.10

• emacs23-common - 23.3+1-1ubuntu4.1
• emacs23 - 23.3+1-1ubuntu4.1

After a standard system update you need to restart Emacs to make all the
necessary changes.

References

• CVE-2012-0035
• CVE-2012-3479