(RHSA-2014:1391) Moderate: glibc security, bug fix, and enhancement update

The glibc packages provide the standard C libraries (libc), POSIX thread
libraries (libpthread), standard math libraries (libm), and the Name
Server Caching Daemon (nscd) used by multiple programs on the system.
Without these libraries, the Linux system cannot function correctly.

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in the way the glibc’s readdir_r()
function handled file system entries longer than the NAME_MAX character
constant. A remote attacker could provide a specially crafted NTFS or CIFS
file system that, when processed by an application using readdir_r(), would
cause that application to crash or, potentially, allow the attacker to
execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the
application. (CVE-2013-4237)

It was found that getaddrinfo() did not limit the amount of stack memory
used during name resolution. An attacker able to make an application
resolve an attacker-controlled hostname or IP address could possibly cause
the application to exhaust all stack memory and crash. (CVE-2013-4458)

These updated glibc packages also include several bug fixes and two
enhancements. Space precludes documenting all of these changes in this
advisory. Users are directed to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 Technical
Notes, linked to in the References section, for information on the most
significant of these changes.

All glibc users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to correct these issues and add these
enhancements.