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GNU Emacs vcdiff Insecure Temporary Files

Secunia Advisory: SA29905  
Release Date: 2008-04-21

Critical:
Less critical
Impact: Privilege escalation
Where: Local system
Solution Status: Vendor Workaround

Software:GNU Emacs 21.x
GNU Emacs 22.x

CVE reference:CVE-2008-1694 (Secunia mirror)



Description:
Some security issues have been reported in GNU Emacs, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to perform certain actions with escalated privileges.

The security issues are caused due to the vcdiff utility (lib-src/vcdiff) using temporary files in an insecure manner. This can be exploited via symlink attacks to e.g. overwrite arbitrary files with the privileges of the user running the vcdiff utility.

The security issues are reported in versions 21.4a and 22.2. Other versions may also be affected.

Solution:
Fixed in the CVS repository.

Provided and/or discovered by:
Steve Grubb, Red Hat

Original Advisory:
Red Hat Bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=208483



Please note: The information that this Secunia Advisory is based on comes from a third party unless stated otherwise.

Secunia collects, validates, and verifies all vulnerability reports issued by security research groups, vendors, and others.

2 Related Secunia Security Advisories

1. GNU Emacs Local Variable Processing Vulnerability
2. GNU Emacs "popmail()" Format String Vulnerability


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