star: Suid root vulnerability — GLSA 200409-11

star contains a suid root vulnerability which could potentially grant unauthorized root access to an attacker.

Affected packages

app-arch/star on all architectures
Affected versions < 1.5_alpha46
Unaffected versions >= 1.5_alpha46

Background

star is an enhanced tape archiver, much like tar, that is recognized for it's speed as well as it's enhanced mt/rmt support.

Description

A suid root vulnerability exists in versions of star that are configured to use ssh for remote tape access.

Impact

Attackers with local user level access could potentially gain root level access.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All star users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge sync
 
 # emerge -pv ">=app-arch/star-1.5_alpha46"
 # emerge ">=app-arch/star-1.5_alpha46"

References

Release date
September 07, 2004

Latest revision
May 30, 2006: 03

Severity
high

Exploitable
local

Bugzilla entries