A boundary error identified in the utility "file" included in many *nix distributions can potentially be exploited by malicious users to escalate their privileges.

By crafting a speciel malicious file a user can cause a buffer overflow and potentially escalate his privileges to any user tricked into viewing the malicious file using the "file" utility.

It has also been reported that a malicious user can escalate privileges without other user interaction. This can be achieved by executing a program, which uses the "file" utility when determinig file types. This would gain the user the same privileges as the program calling "file".

Solution
Updated version:
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Provided and/or discovered by
iDEFENSE

Original Advisory
http://www.idefense.com/advisory/03.04.03.txt

Deep Links
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