libpng: Numerous vulnerabilities

Background

libpng is a standard library used to process PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images. It is used by several other programs, including web browsers and potentially server processes.

Description

libpng contains numerous vulnerabilities including null pointer dereference errors and boundary errors in various functions.

Impact

An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause programs linked against the library to crash or execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running the vulnerable program, which could be the root user.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest available version.

Resolution

All libpng users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

 # emerge sync

 # emerge -pv ">=media-libs/libpng-1.2.5-r8"
 # emerge ">=media-libs/libpng-1.2.5-r8"

You should also run revdep-rebuild to rebuild any packages that depend on older versions of libpng :

 # revdep-rebuild