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GNU Texinfo Multiple Vulnerabilities
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Secunia Advisory:
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SA16816
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Release Date:
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2005-09-15
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Last Update:
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2006-11-09
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Popularity:
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10,369 views
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Critical:
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Moderately critical
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Impact:
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Privilege escalation
System access
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Where:
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From remote
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Solution Status:
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Unpatched
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| Software: | GNU Texinfo 4.x
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| CVE reference: | CVE-2005-3011
CVE-2006-4810
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Description:
Some vulnerabilities have been reported in GNU texinfo, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to perform certain actions on a vulnerable system with escalated privileges, and by malicious people to potentially compromise a vulnerable system.
1) The "sort_offline()" function in textindex.c creates temporary files insecurely using predictable file names. This can be exploited via symlink attacks to create or overwrite arbitrary files with the privileges of the user running the affected application.
Successful exploitation requires that texindex is used with an input file that is 500,000 bytes or larger.
2) A boundary error exists within the "readline()" function in texindex.c. This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow by e.g. tricking a user into opening a specially crafted Texinfo file.
Successful exploitation may allow the execution of arbitrary code, but requires that an input file which is 500,000 bytes or larger is used.
Solution:
Grant only trusted users access to affected systems and do not open untrusted Texinfo files.
Provided and/or discovered by:
1) Frank Lichtenheld
2) Miloslav Trmac
Changelog:
2005-09-23: Added CVE reference.
2006-11-09: Added "readline()" vulnerability.
Original Advisory:
Debian:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=328365
Red Hat:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=211484
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