Newsbeuter: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code — GLSA 201801-18

Insufficient input validation in Newsbeuter may allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary shell commands.

Affected packages

Package	net-news/newsbeuter on all architectures
Affected versions	< 2.9-r3
Unaffected versions	>= 2.9-r3

Background

Newsbeuter is a RSS/Atom feed reader for the text console.

Description

Newsbeuter does not properly escape shell meta-characters in the title and description of RSS feeds when bookmarking.

Impact

A remote attacker, by enticing a user to open a feed with specially crafted URLs, could possibly execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Newsbeuter users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=net-news/newsbeuter-2.9-r3"

References

CVE-2017-12904

Release date
January 17, 2018

Latest revision
January 17, 2018: 1

Severity
normal

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries

628796