GLSA 200610-03: ncompress: Buffer Underflow

http://security.gentoo.org/

Severity:	normal
Title:	ncompress: Buffer Underflow
Date:	10/06/2006
Bugs:	#141728
ID:	200610-03

Synopsis

A buffer underflow vulnerability has been reported in ncompress allowing for the execution of arbitrary code.

Background

ncompress is a suite of utilities to create and extract Lempel-Ziff-Welch (LZW) compressed archives.

Affected packages

Package	Vulnerable	Unaffected	Architecture(s)
app-arch/ncompress	< 4.2.4.1	>= 4.2.4.1	All supported architectures

Description

Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team discovered a static buffer underflow in ncompress.

Impact

An attacker could create a specially crafted LZW archive, that when decompressed by a user or automated system would result in the execution of arbitrary code with the permissions of the user invoking the utility.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All ncompress users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-arch/ncompress-4.2.4.1"

References

CVE-2006-1168

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200610-03.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.