Debian Security Advisory

DSA-292-3 mime-support -- insecure temporary file creation

Date Reported:

22 Apr 2003

Affected Packages:

mime-support

Vulnerable:

Yes

Security database references:

In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2003-0214.

More information:

Colin Phipps discovered several problems in mime-support, that contains support programs for the MIME control files 'mime.types' and 'mailcap'. When a temporary file is to be used it is created insecurely, allowing an attacker to overwrite arbitrary under the user id of the person executing run-mailcap.

When run-mailcap is executed on a file with a potentially problematic filename, a temporary file is created (not insecurely anymore), removed and a symbolic link to this filename is created. An attacker could recreate the file before the symbolic link is created, forcing the display program to display different content.

For the stable distribution (woody) these problems have been fixed in version 3.18-1.3.

For the old stable distribution (potato) these problems have been fixed in version 3.9-1.3.

For the unstable distribution (sid) these problems have been fixed in version 3.23-1.

We recommend that you upgrade your mime-support packages.

Fixed in:

Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (potato)

Source:: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.9-1.3.dsc; http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.9-1.3.tar.gz
Architecture-independent component:: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.9-1.3_all.deb

Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (woody)

Source:: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.18-1.3.dsc; http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.18-1.3.tar.gz
Architecture-independent component:: http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/m/mime-support/mime-support_3.18-1.3_all.deb

MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory.

MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the revised advisory.