A security flaw was found in the way init script implementation of the Tomcat service, an Apache Servlet/JSP Engine, as used in various versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora, performed management of Tomcat log file. A local attacker could use this flaw to cause denial of service or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the privileged system user (root) via symbolic link attacks on Tomcat log file.
Acknowledgements:
Red Hat would like to thank Simon Fayer of Imperial College London for reporting this issue.
Statement:
This flaw pertains to the init scripts provided by the RPM distribution of tomcat in various Red Hat products. ZIP distributions do not include init scripts, and are not affected by this flaw.