Sylpheed, Claws Mail: User-assisted remote execution of arbitrary code — GLSA 200710-29

A format string error has been discovered in Sylpheed and Claws Mail, potentially leading to the remote execution of arbitrary code.

Affected packages

mail-client/sylpheed on all architectures
Affected versions < 2.4.5
Unaffected versions >= 2.4.5
mail-client/claws-mail on all architectures
Affected versions < 3.0.0
Unaffected versions >= 3.0.0

Background

Sylpheed and Claws Mail are two GTK based e-mail clients.

Description

Ulf Harnhammar from Secunia Research discovered a format string error in the inc_put_error() function in file src/inc.c.

Impact

A remote attacker could entice a user to connect to a malicious POP server sending specially crafted replies, possibly resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Sylpheed users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=mail-client/sylpheed-2.4.5"

All Claws Mail users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=mail-client/claws-mail-3.0.0"

References

Release date
October 25, 2007

Latest revision
October 25, 2007: 01

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries