Expat 2.4.0 (and 2.4.1) with security fixes released

[Sebastian Pipping <sebastian@pipping.org>]

Hello everyone!


(A *longer* blog-post version of this e-mail is available online at
https://blog.hartwork.org/posts/cve-2013-0340-billion-laughs-fixed-in-expat-2-4-0/
.)

Expat 2.4.0 [1] and follow-up release 2.4.1 [2] have both been released
earlier today.  Release 2.4.0 fixes long known security issue
CVE-2013-0340 [3] by adding protection against so-called Billion Laughs
Attacks [4], a form of denial of service against applications accepting
XML input, in all known variations, including recent flavor Parameter
Laughs [6].

[..]

Besides this security fix, there is the usual bunch of fixes and
improvements in tooling, documentation, and the two build systems.
For more details, please check out the change log [6].

If you maintain Expat packaging or a bundled copy of Expat or a pinned
version of Expat somewhere, please update to 2.4.1.  Thank you!

Best



Sebastian Pipping


[1] https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases/tag/R_2_4_0
[2] https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases/tag/R_2_4_1
[3] https://marc.info/?l=oss-security&m=136580776324285&w=2
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_laughs_attack
[5]
https://blog.hartwork.org/posts/cve-2021-3541-parameter-laughs-fixed-in-libxml2-2-9-11/
[6] https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/blob/R_2_4_1/expat/Changes