Security Information

Debian takes security very seriously. We handle all security problems brought to our attention and are corrected within a reasonable timeframe. Many advisories are coordinated with other free software vendors and are published the same day a vulnerability is made public and we also have a Security Audit team that reviews the archive looking for new or unfixed security bugs.

Experience has shown that security through obscurity does not work. Public disclosure allows for more rapid and better solutions to security problems. In that vein, this page addresses Debian's status with respect to various known security holes, which could potentially affect Debian.

Debian also participates in security standardization efforts: the Debian Security Advisories are CVE-Compatible (review the cross references) and Debian is represented in the Board of the Open Vulnerability Assessment Language project.

Keeping your Debian system secure

In order to receive the latest Debian security advisories, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.

You can use apt to easily get the latest security updates. This requires a line such as

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free

in your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

For more information about security issues in Debian, please refer to the Security Team FAQ and a manual called Securing Debian.

Recent Advisories

These web pages include a condensed archive of security advisories posted to the debian-security-announce list.

[06 May 2008] DSA-1570 kazehakase
various
[05 May 2008] DSA-1569 cacti
insufficient input sanitising
[05 May 2008] DSA-1568 b2evolution
insufficient input sanitising
[05 May 2008] DSA-1567 blender
buffer overrun
[02 May 2008] DSA-1566 cpio
programming error
[01 May 2008] DSA-1565 linux-2.6
several vulnerabilities
[01 May 2008] DSA-1564 wordpress
multiple vulnerabilities
[30 Apr 2008] DSA-1563 asterisk
programming error
[28 Apr 2008] DSA-1562 iceape
programming error
[28 Apr 2008] DSA-1561 ldm
programming error
[28 Apr 2008] DSA-1560 kronolith2
insufficient input sanitising
[27 Apr 2008] DSA-1559 phpgedview
insufficient input sanitising
[24 Apr 2008] DSA-1558 xulrunner
programming error
[24 Apr 2008] DSA-1557 phpmyadmin
insufficient input sanitising
[24 Apr 2008] DSA-1556 perl
heap buffer overflow
[23 Apr 2008] DSA-1555 iceweasel
programming error
[22 Apr 2008] DSA-1554 roundup
insufficient input sanitising
[20 Apr 2008] DSA-1553 ikiwiki
cross-site request forgery
[19 Apr 2008] DSA-1552 mplayer
missing input sanitising
[19 Apr 2008] DSA-1551 python2.4
several vulnerabilities
[17 Apr 2008] DSA-1550 suphp
programming error
[17 Apr 2008] DSA-1549 clamav
buffer overflows
[17 Apr 2008] DSA-1548 xpdf
several vulnerabilities
[17 Apr 2008] DSA-1547 openoffice.org
several vulnerabilities
[10 Apr 2008] DSA-1546 gnumeric
integer overflow
[10 Apr 2008] DSA-1545 rsync
integer overflow
[09 Apr 2008] DSA-1544 pdns-recursor
design flaw
[09 Apr 2008] DSA-1543 vlc
several vulnerabilities
[09 Apr 2008] DSA-1542 libcairo
integer overflow

The latest Debian security advisories are also available in RDF format. We also offer a second file that includes the first paragraph of the corresponding advisory so you can see in it what the advisory is about.

The older security advisories are also available:

Debian distributions are not vulnerable to all security problems. The Debian Security Tracker collects all information about the vulnerability status of Debian packages, and can be searched by CVE name or by package.

Contact information

Please read the Security Team FAQ before contacting us, your question may well be answered there already!

The contact information is in the FAQ as well.