GLSA 200709-04: po4a: Insecure temporary file creation

Severity:normal
Title:po4a: Insecure temporary file creation
Date:09/13/2007
Bugs: #189440
ID:200709-04

Synopsis

A vulnerability has been discovered in po4a, allowing for a symlink attack.

Background

po4a is a set of tools for helping with the translation of documentation.

Affected packages

Package Vulnerable Unaffected Architecture(s)
app-text/po4a < 0.32-r1 >= 0.32-r1 All supported architectures

Description

The po4a development team reported a race condition in the gettextize() function when creating the file "/tmp/gettextization.failed.po".

Impact

A local attacker could perform a symlink attack, possibly overwriting files with the permissions of the user running po4a.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All po4a users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-text/po4a-0.32-r1"

References

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200709-04.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.

License

Copyright 2010 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text belongs to its owner(s). The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

Thank you!