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Gaim: New vulnerabilities — GLSA 200408-27

Gaim contains several security issues that might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands.

Affected packages

Package net-im/gaim on all architectures
Affected versions < 0.81-r5
Unaffected versions >= 0.81-r5

Background

Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux which supports many instant messaging protocols.

Description

Gaim fails to do proper bounds checking when:

  • Handling MSN messages (partially fixed with GLSA 200408-12).
  • Handling rich text format messages.
  • Resolving local hostname.
  • Receiving long URLs.
  • Handling groupware messages.
  • Allocating memory for webpages with fake content-length header.

Furthermore Gaim fails to escape filenames when using drag and drop installation of smiley themes.

Impact

These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to crash Gaim or execute arbitrary code or commands with the permissions of the user running Gaim.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest available version of Gaim.

Resolution

All gaim users should upgrade to the latest version: 

 # emerge sync
 
 # emerge -pv ">=net-im/gaim-0.81-r5"
 # emerge ">=net-im/gaim-0.81-r5"

References

Release date
August 27, 2004

Latest revision
May 22, 2006: 02

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries