po4a: Insecure temporary file creation

Security Team  Contact Address

Updated September 13, 2007

1.  Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Version Information

Advisory Reference GLSA 200709-04 / po4a
Release Date September 13, 2007
Latest Revision September 13, 2007: 01
Impact normal
Exploitable local
Package Vulnerable versions Unaffected versions Architecture(s)
app-text/po4a < 0.32-r1 >= 0.32-r1 All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #189440

Synopsis

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

2.  Impact Information

Background

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

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.

3.  Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All po4a users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

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

4.  References