gzip: Multiple vulnerabilities — GLSA 200505-05

gzip contains multiple vulnerabilities potentially allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

Affected packages

app-arch/gzip on all architectures
Affected versions < 1.3.5-r6
Unaffected versions >= 1.3.5-r6

Background

gzip (GNU zip) is a popular compression program. The included zgrep utility allows you to grep gzipped files in place.

Description

The gzip and gunzip programs are vulnerable to a race condition when setting file permissions (CAN-2005-0988), as well as improper handling of filename restoration (CAN-2005-1228). The zgrep utility improperly sanitizes arguments, which may come from an untrusted source (CAN-2005-0758).

Impact

These vulnerabilities could allow arbitrary command execution, changing the permissions of arbitrary files, and installation of files to an aribitrary location in the filesystem.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All gzip users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-arch/gzip-1.3.5-r6"

References

Release date
May 09, 2005

Latest revision
May 09, 2005: 01

Severity
normal

Exploitable
local

Bugzilla entries