noweb: Insecure temporary file creation

1.  Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Version Information

Related bugreports: #122705

Synopsis

noweb is vulnerable to symlink attacks, potentially allowing a local user to overwrite arbitrary files.

2.  Impact Information

Background

noweb is a simple, extensible, and language independent literate programming tool.

Description

Javier Fernandez-Sanguino has discovered that the lib/toascii.nw and shell/roff.mm scripts insecurely create temporary files with predictable filenames.

Impact

A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary file directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When an affected script is called, this would result in the file being overwritten with the rights of the user running the script.

3.  Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All noweb users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-text/noweb-2.9-r5"

4.  References

• CVE-2005-3342