Bug 23169 - exmh follows symlinks when writing to /tmp/exmhErrorMsg
Summary: exmh follows symlinks when writing to /tmp/exmhErrorMsg
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: exmh
Version: 7.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
high
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Crutcher Dunnavant
QA Contact: Need Real Name
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2001-01-02 19:18 UTC by Daniel Roesen
Modified: 2007-03-27 03:38 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-01-19 02:41:38 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Daniel Roesen 2001-01-02 19:18:40 UTC
From: "Stanley G. Bubrouski" <stan.EDU>
To: BUGTRAQ
Subject:      Advisory: exmh symlink vulnerability
Date:         Sun, 31 Dec 2000 15:32:40 -0500
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.4.21.0012311529370.24743-100000.neu.edu>

Author:   Stan Bubrouski (stan.edu)
Date:   December 31, 2000
Package:  exmh
Versions affected:  2.2 and probably previous versions.
Severity:  A malicious local user could use a symlink attack to overwrite
           any file writable by the user executing exmh.

Problem: When exmh detects a problem at startup (or possibly other times,
I don't have time to investigate) it encounters errors in its code or
configuration an error dialog comes up asking the user what happened and
giving them the option to fill in an explanation and click a button to
send the bug report via e-mail to the maintainer.  If the user does
attempt to e-mail the maintainer a file named /tmp/exmhErrorMsg is created
and if the file exists and is a symlink it will follow the symlink
allowing local files to be overwritten depending on the user running exmh.

Solution: There are no known solutions at this time.

Copyright 2000 Stan Bubrouski

-- 
Stan Bubrouski                                       stan.edu
316 Huntington Ave. Apt #676, Boston, MA 02115       (617) 377-7222

Comment 1 Stan Bubrouski 2001-01-19 02:41:35 UTC
I tried this on Red Hat 6.x machines also and it produced similar bad behaviour,
following symlinks that is.

-Stan Bubrouski


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