yelp: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code — GLSA 200809-01

A vulnerability in yelp can lead to the execution of arbitrary code when opening a URI, for example through Firefox.

Affected packages

Package	gnome-extra/yelp on all architectures
Affected versions	< 2.22.1-r2
Unaffected versions	>= 2.22.1-r2 revision >= 2.20.0-r1

Background

yelp is the default help browser for GNOME.

Description

Aaron Grattafiori reported a format string vulnerability in the window_error() function in yelp-window.c.

Impact

A remote attacker can entice a user to open specially crafted "man:" or "ghelp:" URIs in yelp, or an application using yelp such as Firefox or Evolution, and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of that user.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All yelp users running GNOME 2.22 should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=gnome-extra/yelp-2.22.1-r2"

All yelp users running GNOME 2.20 should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=gnome-extra/yelp-2.20.0-r1"

References

CVE-2008-3533

Release date
September 04, 2008

Latest revision
September 04, 2008: 01

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries

234079