First published: Wed Sep 21 2016(Updated: )
Bookkeeping errors when extending the read-ahead buffer when trying to identify an mtree archive could lead libarchive to significantly overcalculate the size of the line being read, resulting in heap out-of-bounds reads or a crash. Disclosed on oss-security: <a href="http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2016/q3/516">http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2016/q3/516</a> Upstream issue: <a href="https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/747">https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/issues/747</a> Upstream fix: <a href="https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/commit/eec077f">https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/commit/eec077f</a> All the mtree-related crashes in the oss-sec post came from the same underlying issue and were resolved in this commit.
Credit: cve@mitre.org
Affected Software | Affected Version | How to fix |
---|---|---|
redhat/libarchive | <3.2.2 | 3.2.2 |
libarchive | =3.2.1 | |
openSUSE | =42.2 |
Sign up to SecAlerts for real-time vulnerability data matched to your software, aggregated from hundreds of sources.
CVE-2016-8688 is classified as a medium severity vulnerability due to potential heap out-of-bounds reads or crashes.
To mitigate CVE-2016-8688, upgrade libarchive to version 3.2.2 or later.
CVE-2016-8688 affects libarchive versions prior to 3.2.2, notably version 3.2.1.
Yes, CVE-2016-8688 may result in crashes that could lead to data loss in affected applications.
CVE-2016-8688 has been found in versions of libarchive used by various Linux distributions, including openSUSE.