Multiple integer overflows in io/prprf.c in Mozilla Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) before 4.12 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (buffer overflow) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a long string to a PR_*printf function.

Two vulnerabilities were reported in NSPR, a library to abstract over operating system interfaces developed by the Mozilla project.

  - CVE-2016-1951     q1 reported that the NSPR implementation of     sprintf-style string formatting function miscomputed     memory allocation sizes, potentially leading to     heap-based buffer overflows

The second issue concerns environment variable processing in NSPR. The library did not ignore environment variables used to configuring logging and tracing in processes which underwent a SUID/SGID/AT_SECURE transition at process start. In certain system configurations, this allowed local users to escalate their privileges.

In addition, this nspr update contains further stability and correctness fixes and contains support code for an upcoming nss update.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-3023-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that NSPR incorrectly handled memory allocation. If a user were tricked in to opening a     specially crafted message, an attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service via     application crash, or execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2016-1951)

    Christian Holler, Gary Kwong, Jesse Ruderman, Tyson Smith, Timothy Nikkel, Sylvestre Ledru, Julian Seward,     Olli Pettay, and Karl Tomlinson, discovered multiple memory safety issues in Thunderbird. If a user were     tricked in to opening a specially crafted message, an attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a     denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2016-2818)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-3028-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that NSPR incorrectly handled memory allocation. A remote attacker could use this issue     to cause NSPR to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

It was discovered that there was a buffer overflow in a sprintf utility within nspr, the NetScape Portable Runtime library.

For Debian 7 'Wheezy', this issue has been fixed in nspr version 2:4.9.2-1+deb7u4.

We recommend that you upgrade your nspr packages.

NOTE: Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the DLA security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
93870	Debian DSA-3687-1 : nspr - security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
92408	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS : Thunderbird vulnerabilities (USN-3023-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
92009	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS : NSPR vulnerability (USN-3028-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
91577	Debian DLA-513-1 : nspr security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high

Detections

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CVE-2016-1951

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high