USN-7414-1: XZ Utils vulnerability

3 April 2025

XZ Utils could be made to crash or run programs if it opened a specially crafted file.

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Releases

Packages

  • xz-utils - XZ-format compression utilities

Details

Harri K. Koskinen discovered that XZ Utils incorrectly handled the threaded
xz decoder. If a user or automated system were tricked into processing an
xz file, a remote attacker could use this issue to cause XZ Utils to crash,
resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 24.10
Ubuntu 24.04

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References