Vue lecture

Vulnerabilities in various GTK-based PDF readers

✇LWN
Par : corbet
Michael Catanzaro has disclosed a command-injection vulnerability affecting a number of GTK-based PDF readers; exploits included:

They contain a script for building malicious polyglot PDFs that are simultaneously both valid PDF files and also valid ELF binaries. When the user opens the PDF in the PDF viewer and clicks on a malicious link embedded in the PDF, the PDF abuses the command injection vulnerability to load itself as a GTK module using the `--gtk-module` command line flag. It can then execute arbitrary code via its library constructor. That flag was removed in GTK 4, which is why the vulnerability is much less serious for Papers than it is for Evince, Atril, and Xreader.
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OpenBSD 7.9 released

✇LWN
Par : corbet
The OpenBSD 7.9 release is out, right on schedule. There is the usual long list of new features, including improved architecture support, CPU scheduling on heterogeneous systems, the ability to hibernate a suspended system after a configurable delay, socket splicing, a __pledge_open() system call giving special access to the C library, and much more. See the announcement and the full changelog for details.
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[$] Support for private memory nodes

✇LWN
Par : corbet
Gregory Price started his session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that, in current kernels, if a NUMA node has memory, the assumption is that anybody can make use of it. He is trying to implement the opposite policy — to make some memory off-limits for all processes except those designed specifically to use it. The session was used to present his goals and to discuss how they might be implemented.
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Security updates for Thursday

✇LWN
Par : corbet
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, and libsndfile), Debian (bind9, evince, firefox-esr, openjpeg2, pdns, and rsync), Fedora (erlang-cowlib, evince, expat, firefox, kernel, mingw-expat, mysql8.0, mysql8.4, nss, opencryptoki, pgadmin4, proftpd, python-django5, python-django6, python-dotenv, rsync, rust-nu, rustup, and strongswan), Oracle (nginx, nginx:1.24, ruby, ruby:3.3, and squid), Slackware (bind and rsync), SUSE (buildah, distribution, distribution-registry, docker, firefox-esr, helm, libpainter0, libsdb2_4_2, postgresql-jdbc, runc, and vim), and Ubuntu (gnutls28, gst-plugins-good1.0, jq, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, openvpn, rsync, and unbound).
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[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 21, 2026

✇LWN
Par : corbet
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

  • Front: OpenSUSE site age restrictions; Lots of LSFMM+BPF coverage; The tenth OpenPGP email summit.
  • Briefs: Firefox 151.0; pgBackRest funding; RIP Peter G. Neumann; Quotes; ...
  • Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.
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