Lookup: Insecure temporary file creation

Security Team  Contact Address

Updated December 09, 2007

1.  Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Version Information

Advisory Reference GLSA 200712-07 / lookup
Release Date December 09, 2007
Latest Revision December 09, 2007: 01
Impact normal
Exploitable local
Package Vulnerable versions Unaffected versions Architecture(s)
app-emacs/lookup < 1.4.1 >= 1.4.1 All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #197306

Synopsis

Lookup uses temporary files in an insecure manner, allowing for a symlink attack.

2.  Impact Information

Background

Lookup is a search interface to books and dictionnaries for Emacs.

Description

Tatsuya Kinoshita reported that the ndeb-binary function does not handle temporay files correctly.

Impact

A local attacker could use a symlink attack to overwrite files with the privileges of the user running Lookup.

3.  Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Lookup users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-emacs/lookup-1.4.1"

4.  References