Probably stone-age old and insecure version with remote code execution

[Hadmut Danisch]

Hi,

Ubuntu 24.04 beta still uses libqt5webkit5.

It is not obvious, where it comes from, but the version is still an alpha4, and the link in the README seems to suggest, that it still comes from https://github.com/annulen/webkit, which redirects to https://github.com/qtwebkit/qtwebkit , where the alpha4 tag is over 4 years old.

There, the latest README tells:

Code in this repository is obsolete. If you are looking for up-to-date QtWebKit use this fork: https://github.com/movableink/webkit

https://github.com/movableink/webkit seems to be still maintained – more or less. And calls itself "inofficial mirror"

Have a look at

https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2022/11/04/stop-using-qtwebkit/

which calls qtwebkit insecure, poorly maintained, and cites CVEs about remote code execution (some of them would have to be fixed in the fork, but probably not in the version here in ubuntu).

The problem is, that tools like wkhtmltopdf do use this library and are typically used to pull contents from a given URL, i.e. from foreign websites.

Processing foreign HTML and Javascript code in conjunction with vulnerabilities to remote code execution, this is highly dangerous.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: libqt5webkit5 5.212.0~alpha4-34ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-22.22-generic 6.8.1
Uname: Linux 6.8.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.28.0-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Fri Apr 12 23:31:43 2024
InstallationDate: Installed on 2024-04-12 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" - Beta amd64 (20240411.2)
SourcePackage: qtwebkit-opensource-src
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alex Murray (alexmurray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Since the package referred to in this bug is in universe or multiverse, it is community maintained. If you are able, I suggest coordinating with upstream and posting a debdiff for this issue. When a debdiff is available, members of the security team will review it and publish the package. See the following link for more information: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/UpdateProcedures