An Apport security update has been released for Ubuntu Linux 14.04 ESM and 16.04 ESM.

USN-5122-2: Apport vulnerability

=========================================================================
Ubuntu Security Notice USN-5122-2
October 26, 2021

apport vulnerability
=========================================================================
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:

- Ubuntu 16.04 ESM
- Ubuntu 14.04 ESM

Summary:

Apport could be made to create files as the administrator.

Software Description:
- apport: automatically generate crash reports for debugging

Details:

USN-5122-1 fixed a vulnerability in Apport. This update provides
the corresponding update for Ubuntu 14.04 ESM and Ubuntu 16.04 ESM.

Original advisory details:

It was discovered that Apport could be tricked into writing core files as
root into arbitrary directories in certain scenarios. A local attacker
could possibly use this issue to escalate privileges. On Ubuntu 16.04 ESM
This update will cause Apport to generate all core files in the /var/lib/apport/coredump
directory. On Ubuntu 14.04 ESM, core file generation has been disabled by default.

Update instructions:

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following
package versions:

Ubuntu 16.04 ESM:
apport 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.30+esm3
python3-apport 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.30+esm3

Ubuntu 14.04 ESM:
apport 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm9
python3-apport 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm9

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References:
  https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-5122-2
  https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-5122-1
  https://launchpad.net/bugs/1948657