Stefano Zacchiroli discovered a vulnerability in exuberant-ctags, a tool to build tag file indexes of source code definitions: Certain JavaScript files cause ctags to enter an infinite loop until it runs out of disk space, resulting in denial of service.

For the stable distribution (wheezy), this problem has been fixed in version 1:5.9~svn20110310-4+deb7u1. For the testing distribution (jessie), this problem has been fixed in version 1:5.9~svn20110310-8. For the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 1:5.9~svn20110310-8. We recommend that you upgrade your exuberant-ctags packages.

ctags parses source code and produces a sort of index mapping the names of significant entities (e.g. functions, classes, variables) to the location where that entity is defined. This index is used by editors like vi and emacsen to allow moving to the definition of a user-specified entity.

exuberant-ctags on Debian Linux

This check tests the installed software version using the apt package manager.

• http://www.debian.org/security/2014/dsa-3042.html

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Updated on 2015-03-25