[Reg] "doomsday critical Linux bug" in CUPS

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
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In short, if you're running the Unix printing system CUPS, including cups-browsed, then you may be vulnerable to attacks that could lead to your computer being commandeered over the network or internet.

CUPS is the Common Unix Printing System. If you're not using a printer, and not printing to PDF, you can uninstall all things CUPS. Otherwise, I suggest most just disable and/or uninstall cups-browsed.
 
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crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
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I'm going to drop the commands I used to first check to see if cups-browsed was running, then another command to nuke it from the system. That's not to say an update or upgrade wouldn't re-install it, though:

Code:
sudo systemctl status cups-browsed

sudo apt purge cups-browsed

I'm sure there are better ways, but that seems to do it.
 
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manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
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Are you still able to print PDF in Chrome or Firefox?
Web browsers often have a built-in "save to PDF" feature that doesn't rely on the OS printing stack.


Ubuntu came through with an update to CUPS for my system yesterday, so I'm thinking this was resolved pretty quickly for anyone doing regular updates.
CVEs are usually reported to vendors before they are published to the world. So a vendor patch is typically available before an exploit is in the wild.