Dan Rosenberg found a buffer overflow flaw in the way TeX text formatting system processed virtual font files. If a user was tricked into processing a specially-crafted typesetter-independent .dvi (DeVice Independent) file, it could lead to dvips executable crash or, potentially, to arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the user running dvips.
This issue affects with limited impact the versions of the tetex package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 By processing specially-crafted DVI file this version of tetex launches the "emergency stop" trigger, which prevents the denial of service (dvips crash). This issue affects the version of the tetex package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. This issue does NOT affect the version of the tetex package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 due to applied FORTIFY SOURCE protection, which detects the attack and terminates the particular process prior it can do something harmful. This issue does NOT affect the versions of the texlive package, as shipped with Fedora release of 11 and 12 due to applied FORTIFY SOURCE protection. For further information regarding FORTIFY SOURCE feature, please proceed to: [1] http://www.redhat.com/magazine/009jul05/features/execshield/#checks
Created attachment 400247 [details] patch from upstream to correct the flaw Upstream patch from Karl Berry to correct this flaw.
Created attachment 406226 [details] Updated patch from Karl Berry
Public via: [1] http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2010-0827 [2] http://www.tug.org/svn/texlive/trunk/Build/source/texk/dvipsk/ChangeLog?view=log
This issue has been addressed in following products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Via RHSA-2010:0399 https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0399.html
This issue has been addressed in following products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Via RHSA-2010:0401 https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0401.html
Upstream commit: http://www.tug.org/svn/texlive?view=revision&revision=17560