Pidgin Vulnerabilities Found and Fixed in Multiple Ubuntu OSes

On February 25, in a security notice Canonical published details about Pidgin vulnerabilities for its Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 11.10, and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating systems.

According to Canonical, several security issues have been fixed in Pidgin.

For example, it was discovered that Pidgin incorrectly handled file transfers in the MXit protocol handler. A remote attacker could use this issue to create or overwrite arbitrary files.

It was also discovered that Pidgin incorrectly handled long HTTP headers in the MXit protocol handler. A malicious remote server could use this issue to execute arbitrary code

Users can simply fix the security flaws by upgrading the operating systems to the pidgin and libpurple0, specific to each distribution.

A normal system update, executed with the Update Manager, will implement all the necessary changes. After a standard system update, you need to restart Pidgin.