Debian DSA-3687-1 : nspr - security update

high Nessus Plugin ID 93870

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Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security-related update.

Description

Two vulnerabilities were reported in NSPR, a library to abstract over operating system interfaces developed by the Mozilla project.

- CVE-2016-1951 q1 reported that the NSPR implementation of sprintf-style string formatting function miscomputed memory allocation sizes, potentially leading to heap-based buffer overflows

The second issue concerns environment variable processing in NSPR. The library did not ignore environment variables used to configuring logging and tracing in processes which underwent a SUID/SGID/AT_SECURE transition at process start. In certain system configurations, this allowed local users to escalate their privileges.

In addition, this nspr update contains further stability and correctness fixes and contains support code for an upcoming nss update.

Solution

Upgrade the nspr packages.

For the stable distribution (jessie), these problems have been fixed in version 2:4.12-1+debu8u1.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 93870

File Name: debian_DSA-3687.nasl

Version: 2.11

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Debian Local Security Checks

Published: 10/6/2016

Updated: 1/22/2026

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Tenable Cloud Security, Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.9

Percentile: 52.21

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 5.5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2016-1951

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.6

Temporal Score: 7.5

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:8.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:nspr

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 10/5/2016

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2016-1951

DSA: 3687

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