A Security Vulnerability in the libxml2 Library May Lead to Denial of Service (DoS)

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A Security Vulnerability in the libxml2 Library May Lead to Denial of Service (DoS)

1. Impact

A security vulnerability in the libxml2 library (see libxml2(3)) bundled with Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 may allow a local or remote unprivileged user who provides a specially crafted XML file to cause a denial of service (DoS) to the application which is using the libxml2 library (or potentially to the system as a whole as the application may consume excessive resources). This vulnerability may impact applications making use of this library, and the precise impact will vary depending on the application.

Additional information regarding this issue is available in the following document:


2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 9 without patch 114014-21
• Solaris 10 without patch 125731-03
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_100

x86 Platform

• Solaris 9 without patch 114015-21
• Solaris 10 without patch 125732-03
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_100

Note: Solaris 8 does not bundle libxml2 and thus no applications supplied with Solaris 8 use libxml2. However, libxml2 version 2.4.12 is included on the Solaris 8 OS Software Supplement CD for use with SunVTS 5.1. The SunVTS 5.1 software doesn't generate XML which would trigger this vulnerability so no patches are required for libxml2 in Solaris 8.

3. Symptoms

If this issue is exploited, the application which makes use of the libxml2 library to process the crafted XML file may be unresponsive, possibly consuming all available CPU or memory resources while looping. Commands such as prstat(1M) can be used to determine the utilization of system resources, as in the following example:

$ prstat -s cpu
[...]

4. Workaround

There is no workaround for this issue. Please see the Resolution section below.

5. Resolution

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 9 with patch 114014-21 or later
• Solaris 10 with patch 125731-03 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon build snv_101 or later

x86 Platform

• Solaris 9 with patch 114015-21 or later
• Solaris 10 with patch 125732-03 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon build snv_101 or later
  

For more information on Security Sun Alerts, see Technical Instruction ID 213557.

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