__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN apt-listchanges Vulnerability [Debian Security Advisory DSA-1465-2] January 17, 2008 19:00 GMT Number S-119 [REVISED 23 Jan 2008] ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: It was discovered that apt-listchanges, a package change history notification tool, used unsafe paths when importing its python libraries. PLATFORM: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (sarge) and 4.0 (etch) DAMAGE: Could allow the execution of arbitrary shell commands if the root user executed the command in a directory which other local users may write to. SOLUTION: Upgrade to the appropriate version. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is MEDIUM. This could alllow the execution of ASSESSMENT: arbitrary shell commands if the root user executed the command in a directory which other local users may write to. ______________________________________________________________________________ LINKS: CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/s-119.shtml ORIGINAL BULLETIN: http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1465 ADDITIONAL LINK: http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/27331/discuss CVE: http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name= CVE-2008-0302 ______________________________________________________________________________ REVISION HISTORY: 01/23/2008 - revised S-119 to add a link to Security Focus 27331. [***** Start Debian Security Advisory DSA-1465-2 *****] Debian Security Advisory DSA-1465-2 apt-listchanges -- programming error Date Reported: 17 Jan 2008 Affected Packages: apt-listchanges Vulnerable: Yes Security database references: In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2008-0302. More information: Felipe Sateler discovered that apt-listchanges, a package change history notification tool, used unsafe paths when importing its python libraries. This could allow the execution of arbitary shell commands if the root user executed the command in a directory which other local users may write to. For the stable distribution (etch), this problem has been fixed in version 2.72.5etch1. For the old stable distribution (sarge), this problem was not present. For the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 2.82. We recommend that you upgrade your apt-listchanges package. Fixed in: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (sarge) Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch) Debian (stable) Stable updates are available for alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, i386, ia64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390 and sparc. Source: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/a/apt-listchanges/apt-listchanges_2.72.5etch2.tar.gz http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/a/apt-listchanges/apt-listchanges_2.72.5etch2.dsc Architecture-independent component: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/a/apt-listchanges/apt-listchanges_2.72.5etch2_all.deb MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory. [***** End Debian Security Advisory DSA-1465-2 *****] _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Debian for the information contained in this bulletin. _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (7x24) FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@ciac.org Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. 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