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posted by martyb on Thursday July 25 2019, @05:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the pics-or-it-didn't-happen dept.

Alleged critical VLC flaw is nothing to worry about -- and is nothing to do with VLC

There has been a degree of confusion over the last few days after news spread of a supposed vulnerability in the media player VLC. Despite being labelled by security experts as "critical", VLC's developers, VideoLAN, denied there was a problem at all.

And they were right. While there is a vulnerability, it was in a third-party library, not VLC itself. On top of this, it is nowhere near as severe as first suggested. Oh -- and it was fixed over a year ago. An older version of Ubuntu Linux was to blame for the confusion.

The problem actually exists in a third-party library called libebml, and the issue was addressed some time ago. The upshot is that if you have updated VLC within the last year, there is no risk whatsoever. VLC's developers are understandably upset at the suggestion that their software was insecure.

Also at Tom's Hardware, Boing Boing, and The Register.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @01:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @01:05AM (#871304)

    Well to allay the fears and screaming from the looneybin assylym known as UserLand, VLC was in the updates on my distro. Storm has passed, calm down and enjoy the teacup again.