Important: freetype security update

Updated freetype packages that fix two security issues are now available
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, and 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having
important security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the
CVE link in the References section.

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. The freetype packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4
provide both the FreeType 1 and FreeType 2 font engines. The freetype
packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 provide only the FreeType 2 font
engine.

Two stack overflow flaws were found in the way the FreeType font engine
processed certain Compact Font Format (CFF) character strings (opcodes). If
a user loaded a specially-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-2010-1797)

Red Hat would like to thank Braden Thomas of the Apple Product Security
team for reporting these issues.

Note: CVE-2010-1797 only affects the FreeType 2 font engine.

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a
backported patch 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 all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the 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

621144 - CVE-2010-1797 FreeType: Multiple stack overflows by processing CFF opcodes

https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2010-1797.html
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important