KDM: Symlink vulnerability — GLSA 200606-23

KDM is vulnerable to a symlink vulnerability that can lead to disclosure of information.

Affected packages

kde-base/kdebase on all architectures
Affected versions < 3.5.2-r2
Unaffected versions >= 3.5.2-r2
revision >= 3.4.3-r2
kde-base/kdm on all architectures
Affected versions < 3.5.2-r1
Unaffected versions >= 3.5.2-r1
revision >= 3.4.3-r2

Background

KDE is a feature-rich graphical desktop environment for Linux and Unix-like Operating Systems. KDM is the KDE Display Manager and is part of the kdebase package.

Description

Ludwig Nussel discovered that KDM could be tricked into allowing users to read files that would otherwise not be readable.

Impact

A local attacker could exploit this issue to obtain potentially sensitive information that is usually not accessable to the local user such as shadow files or other user's files. The default Gentoo user running KDM is root and, as a result, the local attacker can read any file.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All kdebase users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose kde-base/kdebase

All KDE split ebuild users should upgrade to the latest KDM version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose kde-base/kdm

References

Release date
June 22, 2006

Latest revision
June 24, 2006: 02

Severity
normal

Exploitable
local

Bugzilla entries