Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

BID:2827

Info

Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 2827
Class: Race Condition Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Jun 05 2001 12:00AM
Updated: Jun 05 2001 12:00AM
Credit: This vulnerability was first submitted to BugTraq on May 24, 2001 by Jarno Huuskonen <[email protected]>.
Vulnerable: Ken Stevens ispell 3.1.20
- MandrakeSoft Corporate Server 1.0.1
- Mandriva Linux Mandrake 8.0
- Mandriva Linux Mandrake 7.2
- Mandriva Linux Mandrake 7.1
- Redhat Linux 5.2
- Redhat Linux 6.2
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

A vulnerability exists in versions of ispell, involving the way gnomerpm handles tmp files. ispell creates temporary files in the world-writeable /tmp directory with preditable filenames. It is possible for a malicious user to create symbolic links in /tmp with guessed/predicted filenames, knowing in advance that ispell will be run by a privileged user. When this happens, the files pointed to by the correctly guessed symbolic links will be overwritten.

Exploit / POC

Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

No exploit is required.

Solution / Fix

Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

Solution:
Red Hat and Mandrake have released updated ispell packages which address this issue:


Ken Stevens ispell 3.1.20

References

Ken Stevens ispell Symbolic Link Vulnerability

References:

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