Fedora: Legacy: utempter Insecure temporary file vulnerability
Summary
Fedora Legacy Update Advisory Synopsis: Updated utempter resolves security vulnerability Advisory ID: FLSA:1546 Issue date: 2004-05-18 Product: Red Hat Linux Keywords: Security Cross references: CVE Names: CAN-2004-0233 1. Topic: An updated utempter package that fixes a potential symlink vulnerability is now available. 2. Relevent releases/architectures: Red Hat Linux 7.2 - i386 Red Hat Linux 7.3 - i386 Red Hat Linux 8.0 - i386 3. Problem description: Utempter is a utility that allows terminal applications such as xterm and screen to update utmp and wtmp without requiring root privileges. Steve Grubb discovered a flaw in Utempter which allowed device names containing directory traversal sequences such as '/../'. In combination with an application that trusts the utmp or wtmp files, this could allow a local attacker the ability to overwrite privileged files using a symlink. Users should upgrade to this new version of utempter, which fixes this vulnerability. Fedora Legacy would like to thank Barry K. Nathan for notification of this issue. 4. Solution: Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run: rpm -Fvh [filenames] where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the desired RPMs. Please note that this update is also available via yum and apt. Many people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use yum issue: yum update or to use apt: apt-get update; apt-get upgrade This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate RPMs being upgraded on your system. This assumes that you have yum or apt-get configured for obtaining Fedora Legacy content. Please visit for directions on how to configure yum and apt-get. 5. Bug IDs fixed: - 1546 - utempter symlink vulnerability 6. RPMs required: Red Hat Linux 7.2: SRPM: i386: Red Hat Linux 7.3: SRPM: i386: Red Hat Linux 8.0: SRPM: i386: 7. Verification: SHA1 sum Package Name 739587d500bf401d83a5f2b01195ca8b5c81bed7 7.2/updates/SRPMS/utempter-0.5.2-6.7.x.1.legacy.src.rpm 021ec30fe6404f2eb74eee160a339fbd003c1b97 7.2/updates/i386/utempter-0.5.2-6.7.x.1.legacy.i386.rpm 739587d500bf401d83a5f2b01195ca8b5c81bed7 7.3/updates/SRPMS/utempter-0.5.2-6.7.x.1.legacy.src.rpm 021ec30fe6404f2eb74eee160a339fbd003c1b97 7.3/updates/i386/utempter-0.5.2-6.7.x.1.legacy.i386.rpm afc6bf313598d51e6a1ab9f83a8c1a0b244d167b 8.0/updates/SRPMS/utempter-0.5.2-10.8.0.1.legacy.src.rpm de4579faebfb0a5981be4ed2d1cf4b4ade396f41 8.0/updates/i386/utempter-0.5.2-10.8.0.1.legacy.i386.rpm These packages are GPG signed by Fedora Legacy for security. Our key is available from You can verify each package with the following command: rpm --checksig -v If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the sha1sum with the following command: sha1sum
Change Log
References
CVE -CVE-2004-0233 9. Contact: The Fedora Legacy security contact is <secnotice@fedoralegacy.org>. More project details at http://www.fedoralegacy.org - -- Jesse Keating RHCE ( ) Fedora Legacy Team (http://www.fedoralegacy.org)