USN-7414-1: XZ Utils vulnerability

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.

Releases

• Ubuntu 24.10
• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

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.

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

Ubuntu 24.10

• xz-utils - 5.6.2-2ubuntu0.2
  Ubuntu 24.04
• xz-utils - 5.6.1+really5.4.5-1ubuntu0.2
  In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.