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Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat Security Advisory
Synopsis: Updated vte packages fix gnome-terminal vulnerability
Advisory ID: RHSA-2003:053-10
Issue date: 2003-02-06
Updated on: 2003-02-24
Product: Red Hat Linux
Keywords: window title
Cross references:
Obsoletes:
CVE Names: CAN-2003-0070
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1. Topic:
Updated vte packages that fix a vulnerability in gnome-terminal are
available for Red Hat Linux 8.0.
2. Relevant releases/architectures:
Red Hat Linux 8.0 - i386
3. Problem description:
VTE is an terminal emulator widget used by software such as gnome-terminal.
One feature that most terminal emulators support is the ability
for the shell to set the title of the window using an escape sequence.
Certain xterm variants also provide an escape sequence for reporting the
current window title. This essentially takes the current title and places
it directly on the command line. This feature could be potentially
exploited if an attacker can cause carefully crafted escape sequences to be
displayed on a vulnerable terminal emulator used by their victim.
Since it is not possible to embed a carriage return into the window title
itself, the attacker would have to convince the victim to hit enter for it
to process the title as a command, although the attacker can perform a
number of actions to increase the likelyhood of this happening.
VTE is vulnerable to this issue and is used as the default terminal
emulator for versions of gnome-terminal shipped with Red Hat Linux 8.0.
Previous releases of Red Hat Linux do not contain a vulnerable version of
gnome-terminal.
Users of gnome-terminal on Red Hat Linux 8.0 are advised to upgrade to
these errata packages, which contain a patch to disable the title reporting
functionality.
Red Hat would like to thank H D Moore for bringing these issues to our
attention.
Please note; because this update contains a fixed shared library used by
gnome-terminal, the vulnerable code will continue to be in use as long as
any gnome-terminal session remains active. The easiest way to ensure that
the vulnerable code is no longer in use is to log out of your window
manager. Alternatively all running gnome-terminal sessions can be closed.
4. Solution:
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.
To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:
rpm -Fvh [filenames]
where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the
desired RPMs.
Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:
up2date
This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.
5. RPMs required:
Red Hat Linux 8.0:
SRPMS:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/8.0/en/os/SRPMS/vte-0.8.19-2.src.rpm
i386:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/8.0/en/os/i386/vte-0.8.19-2.i386.rpm
ftp://updates.redhat.com/8.0/en/os/i386/vte-devel-0.8.19-2.i386.rpm
6. Verification:
MD5 sum Package Name
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2b91fffb6e98aa9542cbdb3a0508cc49 8.0/en/os/SRPMS/vte-0.8.19-2.src.rpm
a274eeb1dd40afeed45ea2f7601a6bac 8.0/en/os/i386/vte-0.8.19-2.i386.rpm
e4172c1224bc77357a0f0a8c315f2dc5 8.0/en/os/i386/vte-devel-0.8.19-2.i386.rpm
These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat, Inc. for security. Our key
is available at http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/pgpkey.html
You can verify each package with the following command:
rpm --checksig -v <filename>
If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or
tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command:
md5sum <filename>
7. References:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0070
8. Contact:
The Red Hat security contact is <securityat_private>. More contact
details at http://www.redhat.com/solutions/security/news/contact.html
Copyright 2003 Red Hat, Inc.
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