Security
Security
The movemail utility shipped with Emacs and XEmacs contains several format string vulnerabilities, potentially leading to the execution of arbitrary code.
| Package | app-editors/emacs on all architectures |
|---|---|
| Affected versions | < 21.4 |
| Unaffected versions | >= 21.4 < 19 |
| Package | app-editors/xemacs on all architectures |
|---|---|
| Affected versions | < 21.4.15-r3 |
| Unaffected versions | >= 21.4.15-r3 |
GNU Emacs and XEmacs are highly extensible and customizable text editors. movemail is an Emacs utility that can fetch mail on remote mail servers.
Max Vozeler discovered that the movemail utility contains several format string errors.
An attacker could set up a malicious POP server and entice a user to connect to it using movemail, resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the rights of the victim user.
There is no known workaround at this time.
All Emacs users should upgrade to the latest version:
# emerge --sync # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-editors/emacs-21.4"
All XEmacs users should upgrade to the latest version:
# emerge --sync # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-editors/xemacs-21.4.15-r3"
Release date
February 15, 2005
Latest revision
July 23, 2006: 02
Severity
normal
Exploitable
remote
Bugzilla entries