1.9.  apr-util

Updated apr-util packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

apr-util is a utility library used with the Apache Portable Runtime (APR). It aims to provide a free library of C data structures and routines. This library contains additional utility interfaces for APR; including support for XML, LDAP, database interfaces, URI parsing, and more.

An off-by-one overflow flaw was found in the way apr-util processed a variable list of arguments. An attacker could provide a specially-crafted string as input for the formatted output conversion routine, which could, on big-endian platforms, potentially lead to the disclosure of sensitive information or a denial of service (application crash). (CVE-2009-1956)

Note: The CVE-2009-1956 flaw only affects big-endian platforms, such as the IBM S/390 and PowerPC. It does not affect users using the apr-util package on little-endian platforms, due to their different organization of byte ordering used to represent particular data.

A denial of service flaw was found in the apr-util Extensible Markup Language (XML) parser. A remote attacker could create a specially-crafted XML document that would cause excessive memory consumption when processed by the XML decoding engine. (CVE-2009-1955)

A heap-based underwrite flaw was found in the way apr-util created compiled forms of particular search patterns. An attacker could formulate a specially-crafted search keyword, that would overwrite arbitrary heap memory locations when processed by the pattern preparation engine. (CVE-2009-0023)

All apr-util users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. Applications using the Apache Portable Runtime library, such as httpd, must be restarted for this update to take effect.