Important: freetype security update

Updated freetype packages that fix various security issues are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4.

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

FreeType is a free, high-quality, portable font engine that can open and
manage font files. It also loads, hints, and renders individual glyphs
efficiently. These packages provide both the FreeType 1 and FreeType 2
font engines.

Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team discovered several integer
overflow flaws in the FreeType 2 font engine. If a user loaded a
carefully-crafted font file with an application linked against FreeType 2,
it could cause the application to crash or, possibly, execute arbitrary
code with the privileges of the user running the application.
(CVE-2009-0946)

Chris Evans discovered multiple integer overflow flaws in the FreeType font
engine. If a user loaded a carefully-crafted font file with an application
linked against FreeType, it could cause the application to crash or,
possibly, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
the application. (CVE-2006-1861)

An integer overflow flaw was found in the way the FreeType font engine
processed TrueType® Font (TTF) files. If a user loaded a carefully-crafted
font file with an application linked against FreeType, it could cause the
application to crash or, possibly, execute arbitrary code with the
privileges of the user running the application. (CVE-2007-2754)

A flaw was discovered in the FreeType TTF font-file format parser when the
TrueType virtual machine Byte Code Interpreter (BCI) is enabled. If a user
loaded a carefully-crafted font file with an application linked against
FreeType, it could cause the application to crash or, possibly, execute
arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.
(CVE-2008-1808)

The CVE-2008-1808 flaw did not affect the freetype packages as distributed
in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4, as they are not compiled with TrueType
BCI support. A fix for this flaw has been included in this update as users
may choose to recompile the freetype packages in order to enable TrueType
BCI support. Red Hat does not, however, provide support for modified and
recompiled packages.

Note: For the FreeType 2 font engine, the CVE-2006-1861, CVE-2007-2754,
and CVE-2008-1808 flaws were addressed via RHSA-2006:0500, RHSA-2007:0403,
and RHSA-2008:0556 respectively. This update provides corresponding
updates for the FreeType 1 font engine, included in the freetype packages
distributed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4.

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
backported patches to correct these issues. The X server must be restarted
(log out, then log back in) for this update to take effect.

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

240200 - CVE-2007-2754 freetype integer overflow
450774 - CVE-2008-1808 FreeType off-by-one flaws
484437 - CVE-2006-1861 freetype: multiple integer overflow vulnerabilities
491384 - CVE-2009-0946 freetype: multiple integer overflows

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2006-1861
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-2754
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-1808
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-0946
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important
http://www.redhat.com/support/policy/soc/production/