The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released a security
update to all current versions of the PostgreSQL database system,
including versions 9.2.4, 9.1.9, 9.0.13, and 8.4.17. This update
fixes a high-exposure security vulnerability in versions 9.0 and
later. All users of the affected versions are strongly urged to apply
the update *immediately*.
A major security issue (for versions 9.x only) fixed in this release,
[CVE-2013-1899](http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2013-1899),
makes it possible for a connection request containing a database name
that begins with "-" to be crafted that can damage or destroy files
within a server's data directory. Anyone with access to the port the
PostgreSQL server listens on can initiate this request. This issue was
discovered by Mitsumasa Kondo and Kyotaro Horiguchi of NTT Open Source
Software Center.
Two lesser security fixes are also included in this release:
[CVE-2013-1900](http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2013-1900),
wherein random numbers generated by contrib/pgcrypto functions may be
easy for another database user to guess (all versions), and
[CVE-2013-1901](http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2013-1901),
which mistakenly allows an unprivileged user to run commands that
could interfere with in-progress backups (for versions 9.x only).