legacy version of bug 148912 my 7.3 system has /usr/bin/kppp as part of package kppp-3.0.5a-0.73.0
This issue was worked on for RHEL2.1 and RHEL3 in bug #148912. Is also known as KDE Advisory "advisory-20050228-1," at <http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20050228-1.txt> From that advisory: "1. Systems affected: "kppp as included in KDE up to including KDE 3.1.5. KDE 3.2.x and newer are not affected. "2. Overview: "kppp, if installed suid root, allows local attackers to hijack a system's domain name resolution function. "A fix introduced for a similiar vulnerability, added to the code base in 1998, was incomplete and can be bypassed. "In 2002 a proper fix was made by Dirk Mueller for KDE 3.2 as part of a code audit. No advisory was issued because the problem was considered to be unexploitable at that time. iDEFENSE now rediscovered the issue and supplied an example exploit for this vulnerability. "3. Impact: "Modifications to /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf can be done by local users which allows manipulation of host and domain name lookups, enabling other phishing and social engineering attacks." This issue affects RHL7.3, RHL9, and FC1. Red Hat issued http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2005-175.html on this issue.
Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core releases <=4 are now completely unmaintained. These bugs can't be fixed in these versions. If the issue still persists in current Fedora Core releases, please reopen. Thank you, and sorry about this.