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A mirrorselect security update has been released for Gentoo Linux

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Gentoo Linux Security Advisory GLSA 200412-05:02
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http://security.gentoo.org/
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Severity: Normal
Title: mirrorselect: Insecure temporary file creation
Date: December 07, 2004
Updated: December 07, 2004
Bugs: #73545
ID: 200412-05:02

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Synopsis
=======

mirrorselect is vulnerable to symlink attacks, potentially allowing a local user to overwrite arbitrary files.



Background
=========

mirrorselect is a tool to help select distfiles mirrors for Gentoo.

Affected packages
================

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Package / Vulnerable / Unaffected
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1 app-portage/mirrorselect < 0.89 >= 0.89

Description
==========

Ervin Nemeth discovered that mirrorselect creates temporary files in world-writable directories with predictable names.

Impact
=====

A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When mirrorselect is executed, this would result in the file being overwritten with the rights of the user running the utility, which could be the root user.

Workaround
=========

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution
=========

All mirrorselect users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-portage/mirrorselect-0.89"

Availability
===========

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website:

http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200412-05.xml

Concerns?
========

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at http://bugs.gentoo.org.

License
======

Copyright 2004 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text belongs to its owner(s).

The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0