file: Denial of service — GLSA 201408-08

A vulnerability in file could result in Denial of Service.

Affected packages

sys-apps/file on all architectures
Affected versions < 5.15
Unaffected versions >= 5.15

Background

file is a utility that guesses a file format by scanning binary data for patterns.

Description

BEGIN regular expression in the awk script detector in magic/Magdir/commands uses multiple wildcards with unlimited repetitions.

Impact

A context-dependent attacker could entice a user to open a specially crafted file, possibly resulting in a Denial of Service condition.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All file users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=sys-apps/file-5.15"
 

References

Release date
August 26, 2014

Latest revision
August 29, 2014: 6

Severity
normal

Exploitable
local, remote

Bugzilla entries