LWN.net Weekly Edition for September 15, 2005

The Grumpy Editor's guide to personal finance managers (Part I)

It has often been said that free software developers are a self-interested bunch. They will work on programs which are interesting to them personally, while avoiding projects which they may never use. That is why we have several complex window managers but little in the way of free payroll systems.

If this saying is true, one might well wonder: why has it taken the community so long to develop a truly capable personal finance manager? Almost every developer will have a checking account of some variety, bills to pay, taxes to deal with, etc. Tracking accounts in paper registers is tedious and error prone - and nearly impossible once a few complications (such as, say, a spouse whose attention to detail in these matters is sporadic at best, not that your editor would know about such things, honest) are thrown in. Keeping track of one's finances is clearly a job for a computer.

Be that as it may, this is an area which has not drawn much attention from the development community. There has long been little choice for those wanting a free finance manager, and the available applications have lagged behind the proprietary offerings. Perhaps all those desktop hackers are simply pretending not to notice as their spouses balance their checkbooks with Quicken.

That said, the situation is not all bad. Your editor has managed his eternally frightening finances with free software for some years. In more recent times, the number of available packages with a minimum of useful functionality has grown. So it's time for your editor to put together a review of what's available. Personal finance managers are complex applications; as a result, a comprehensive review will be long. This review will be done in two parts; this part looks at basic account functionality, while the next will cover more advanced features.

There are a number of projects out there, but this review will concentrate on three of them. Many of the others have not advanced beyond a simple list of transactions, and many of them have seen no development for years. There are also a few proprietary alternatives available for Linux, but they will not be reviewed here.

This review looks at:

• GnuCash. This package is the reigning champion of free money managers; it was first reviewed in LWN in 1999. The most recent release is 1.8.11, which came out in February, 2005. GnuCash is a GNOME application, but it has not yet made the transition to GTK2.

  As we will see, GnuCash remains the most featureful of the free money managers, though the others are starting to catch up. This package also has high aspirations: it would like to be a full accounting package suitable for use in businesses as well as at home. So, GnuCash is unique in using double entry bookkeeping for all accounts. This is a mixed blessing; the business-related features of GnuCash have been slow to mature, and they seem to have distracted some attention from the personal finance side of the application.

  Nonetheless, GnuCash is the program to beat in the free software community. For this reason, both of the other programs reviewed here are able to import data from GnuCash files.

• Grisbi is a GNOME-based money manager with a distinctly European feel - in fact, the program is developed primarily in French, with an English-language version only becoming available in 2004. Much of the documentation still lacks an English translation. The current version of Grisbi is 0.5.7, released in June, 2005.

• The leading KDE-based application is KMyMoney. Like GnuCash, KMyMoney aims high, and would like to be useful for small business needs. It features double-entry accounting, but lacks some of the other features implemented by GnuCash. KMyMoney 0.8 was released in August, 2005.

First impressions

First impressions matter, especially when one is dealing with one's money. So Grisbi's initial screen - essentially a large, empty, gray box with a small menu bar on top - can be a bit disconcerting. A personal finance manager should be designed to work well for people who are not particularly familiar with computers, so it would be polite, when starting from the beginning, to lead the user through some sort of initial setup. Or, at least, give a pointer in that direction.

KMyMoney starts in the usual manner for KDE applications - slowly, and with a lot of strange stuff written to the standard output. Once you get past that, a splash screen comes up, followed by a window with a place to click to go through a set of setup screens. It asks for a bunch of personal information, the purpose of which is not entirely clear. Next, the user gets to pick a "base currency," with the Afghani being the rather unhelpful default. Almost every imaginable currency is available, from the Mongolian Tugrik to "Gold." After picking from a directory of account templates (they could have set a default from the currency the user just chose, but don't), the user lands in the main KMyMoney2 screen.

GnuCash throws up a "tip of the day," immediately overlaid by a little window giving an opportunity to create accounts from scratch or import a QIF file. The former option yields a "druid" which enables a choice of currency and presents a set of common accounts to create. GnuCash arguably has the most capable and friendly startup mechanism, but it must be said that its continued use of GTK1 shows. It simply is not as pretty as other GNOME applications, large pulldown menus (currency choice, for example) cannot be navigated with the scroll wheel, and it feels generally older.

Account creation

One way or another, users will have to create accounts in their shiny new finance manager. So each application provides an account creation screen. We'll get into those shortly, but, first, it's worth looking at the types of accounts which are supported by each application.

• A money manager must support accounts which hold money. All three of them understand basic bank accounts - KMyMoney distinguishes between checking and savings accounts, though it is not clear how it treats them differently. All three have "cash" accounts - bank accounts without the bank, essentially.

• Another common feature is accounts for liabilities - loans, credit cards, etc. Grisbi provides only a single "liability" account. GnuCash adds credit card accounts as a separate type, while KMyMoney goes even further with a separate loan account type.

• All three packages have accounts for assets - a place to keep track of the value of your car, for example. Many dotcom veterans will appreciate this; it makes the "net worth" calculation look much nicer if you can include the value of that 1999 Ferrari. GnuCash has a separate "equity" account type which is used for initial conditions - your net worth before GnuCash entered the picture. The equity account is needed to make all of the double-entry accounts balance out.

• GnuCash is alone in having income and expense accounts. This type of account is required if you are going to do double-entry bookkeeping - every transaction must be represented as a transfer between accounts. Since KMyMoney claims double-entry capability as well, it presumably implements a similar type of account, but they are presented to the user as "categories."

• Grisbi does not have any sort of account for investments. There is a general "investment" account type in KMyMoney; GnuCash, instead, provides separate currency, stock and mutual fund account types.

• Finally, GnuCash has "accounts payable" and "accounts receivable" account types which are used with its small business features.

GnuCash takes a "one big window" approach to account creation - everything one may wish to add is to be found there. Some of the fields are obvious, others less so. "Commodity" is, for most accounts, the currency in which the account is denominated. The "account code" is a number which, seemingly, only affects the order in which the accounts are sorted in the main window. It is nice to have the control, but a modern user expects to be able to effect that sort of ordering just by dragging the accounts around. The account type must be chosen from a tiny, scrolling window. With GnuCash, one must also choose a "parent account," because accounts are stored in a hierarchical manner.

What the GnuCash account creation window lacks is any way of creating accounts (such as mortgages) involving regular, complicated payments. That capability does exist, but it is to be found deeply under the "actions" menu in the main window. The "Mortgage/Loan Druid" is highly capable, though with some strange defaults (interest rate of 0.001%, for example). It understands things like escrow accounts and mortgage insurance, and can set up everything which is needed to track the loan. It gives every impression of being a feature which was bolted on relatively late in the game, however.

KMyMoney has the slickest new account creation dialogs. A request to create an account leads to a series of graphics-heavy windows appropriate for the type of the account. Unlike GnuCash, KMyMoney tracks "institutions" as separate entities, and can (optionally) associate accounts with them. Accounts involving regular payments (such as credit cards) will draw an offer to set up a scheduled transaction. Setting up a loan requires entering interest and payment information as well. The mortgage mechanism is a little less sophisticated (it does not understand escrow accounts, for example), but it has everything which is truly needed.

KMyMoney implements hierarchical accounts, but there is no way, in the account creation process, to specify where in the hierarchy an account should be created. Accounts can be moved later, however.

Creating an account with Grisbi starts with selecting the account type. Then the main application window is taken over by a form where the relevant information can be filled in. Grisbi, like KMyMoney, keeps track of financial institutions. Grisbi accounts can also have minimum balances associated with them; running an account below the minimum yields a warning.

Grisbi accounts have a currency associated with them; your editor was somewhat surprised to see that the Euro was the only option provided. As much as your editor would have rather had all of his accounts in Euro over the last few years, that is not the case. Currencies, as it turns out, are one of the stranger corners of the Grisbi interface. It is possible to change the list of "known currencies" under the Edit->Preferences menu. Clicking on the "Add" button yields the usual lengthy list of currencies, sorted in a way seemingly designed to force both North Americans and Europeans to scroll for a long time before finding anything useful. Once the currency has been "added," it is available for use in new accounts. But this dialog is not available until at least one account has been created. So those of us unlucky enough to have our accounts in $US must first create a throwaway Euro account before adding our native currency (which Grisbi clearly knows about) to the "known currencies" list.

Grisbi has no notion of hierarchical accounts, and no "druids" for the addition of more complicated accounts.

Entering transactions

Personal finance applications offer no end of features and capabilities to users. What most of those users will spend their time actually doing, however, is entering transactions into the program. It would thus make sense for those working on this kind of software to focus a great deal of effort toward making this task quick, easy, and relatively easy to get right.

GnuCash is the clear winner in this area. The register window has all of the information required, and is highly configurable. Transactions can be entered quickly, with no need to use the mouse once the process is started. GnuCash remembers transactions, so it can expand names and cut back on typing. Nicely, it seems to have some way of tracking which descriptions are used most often, so the suggested expansion is usually the one you want. For payees which have been seen before, GnuCash will fill in the transfer account (read "category") and the dollar amount seen the previous time. As a result, many transactions can be entered with very few keystrokes. The only slight glitch is that the transaction memory is local to each account, so things do not always expand when one might expect them to.

GnuCash allows the date to be changed with the + and - keys (= works in place of +, saving wear on the little finger). A + in the number field will generate the next check number. This number is calculated from whatever was entered last, rather than from the largest number ever seen; this feature is much appreciated in households where more than one checkbook is in use for the same account. Unfortunately, there is no way for GnuCash to help effect any control over what the spouse does with that other checkbook.

The KMyMoney register, instead, is harder to work with. Starting a new transaction requires an action with the mouse. Thereafter, everything can be done with the keyboard, but more keystrokes are required. When GnuCash proposes an expansion for a payee, a single tab is sufficient to accept it, set the category, and move the cursor to the amount field. KMyMoney requires a combination of tabs and carriage returns before it will move on to the category field - and, if you get the combination wrong, it will simply enter an incomplete transaction. Several fields must be tabbed through to get to the amount. KMyMoney will remember categories and amounts (but only after you find and turn on the relevant configuration option).

KMyMoney can also guess check numbers (again, after an option has been explicitly turned on), but it is a simple "biggest yet" calculation with no attention to the numbers the user is entering at the time. The check number cannot be incremented or decremented with any keys that your editor was able to find. KMyMoney will warn the user if a transaction with a duplicate number is about to be entered; GnuCash does not perform that check. The date can be adjusted using the up and down arrows, but something inspired the KMyMoney developers to have the arrow keys adjust the year of the transaction by default. Even your editor does not normally get quite that far behind in his checkbook maintenance; it should not be necessary to hit two right-arrows to be able to change the day of the month.

KMyMoney requires the user to choose between five different types of transaction to enter: checks, deposits, transfers, withdrawals, and "ATM." GnuCash has done away with that distinction; everything is a transfer. Things are simpler that way; there should be no need to categorize transactions for the application in this manner.

While KMyMoney is, in many ways, a very nice application, the slower transaction entry process would, on its own, be enough to disqualify it as far as your editor is concerned. Fortunately, none of the issues mentioned here should be particularly hard to fix.

In many ways, Grisbi almost gets transaction entry right. It is possible to get through most of the form by tabbing, payees are expanded and previous information substituted, and check numbers are guessed based on what was entered previously. Your editor had some difficulty at the beginning, where Grisbi was convinced that transactions were being entered in Euro; since the account was in dollars, Grisbi asked for a conversion factor. Once told to use dollars for transactions, however, Grisbi remembered - but transactions should default to the currency associated with the account.

Dates can be adjusted with + and -. Unlike GnuCash (and a number of other programs), Grisbi does not accept = as a substitute for +. Each Grisbi transaction always starts with the current date; it would be more useful to use the date of the previous transaction, as GnuCash and KMyMoney do. But the truly obnoxious feature is that Grisbi assumes that all transactions are done with a credit card (for a checking account, even), and telling it that a check is involved requires using the mouse. That slows down the entire process.

GnuCash is also able to work with banks supporting the (German) Home Banking Computer Information (HBCI) protocol, but your editor, lacking bank accounts in Germany, was unable to test this feature.

There is much to be said for not typing in transactions at all. Quite a few banks will make transaction information available via the OFX/QFX file format, and all three programs reviewed here are able to import that format. GnuCash sorts imported transactions into three piles - those which it cannot import at all, those which need to manually have transfer accounts (categories) set, and those for which it was able to guess categories itself. The category assignment process is a bit cumbersome (it would be nicer if the same interface was used here as in the register) but effective. The automatic assignments appear error prone, so one needs to glance them over before finishing the task.

Grisbi will simply import the whole set of transactions into the indicated account with no category information at all; the user must go in afterward and fix things up one by one. Unfortunately, your editor was unable to build OFX support for KMyMoney.

Reconciliation

The other common time-consuming task performed with personal finance managers is account reconciliation, otherwise known as the process of figuring out why the bank thinks you have less money than you thought you had. The reconciliation process tends to be tedious, with occasional unpleasant surprises. A finance manager can do nothing about the financial pain involved in reconciliation, but it should at least make the process as quick and straightforward as possible.

The GnuCash reconciliation process starts with a request for a statement date and ending balance. GnuCash attempts to come up with a default date, but the results are occasionally strange. The window also asks whether subaccounts should be included in the process, and gives the opportunity to enter an interest payment. The actual reconciliation window contains two panes; GnuCash, unlike other programs, separates deposits and debits for this process. The key by which items are sorted can be selected by clicking on the column heading - a nice feature if you like to have checks listed in number order, rather than by date. Reconciling items is a simple matter of clicking on them. Double-clicking on an item will bring up a register window with the cursor at that item, allowing quick corrections to be made. The register window can also be used to enter new transactions (all those ATM withdrawals you forgot, for example) at any time.

The reconciliation process in KMyMoney is similar; during the setup phase, it also allows the entry of bank charges, however. The reconciliation window has a single pane, with deposits and debits mixed together and sorted in date order. There does not appear to be any way to change the sorting order. Double-clicking on a transaction allows it to be edited in place. KMyMoney allows the user to "postpone" the completion of the reconciliation process, and will remember the relevant information for the next time.

The Grisbi reconciliation option is hard to find - it is not anywhere in the menubar. Instead, one must go to the "transactions" window, then hit the "reconcile" button on the lower left. Statement information is then entered in the left column; there is no provision for the entry of interest payments or bank fees. Clicking on transactions will cause them to be marked as reconciled (at least, one assumes that "P" means reconciled in some language); double-clicking allows them to be edited in the bottom part of the window. The process is ended with the "OK" button on the lower left; that button is not active until everything balances out (there is no "postpone" option).

Conclusion to Part I

With the features described above, any of these three programs can be used to keep track of a set of bank accounts. Personal finance programs can offer much more, however. The second part of this article will cover some of the other capabilities expected of a contemporary finance application, including:

• Scheduled transactions - tracking (and reminding about) payment which are to happen in the future.

• Loan tracking, including tracking the current principal balance.

• Reports. Can you see where the money is going, how it got there, and make a nice pie chart out of it?

• Investment tracking: stocks and funds, dividend reinvestments, capital gains, use of online price information, etc.

• Budget creation and tracking.

If space and time allow, the second part may also include a look at the business features offered by GnuCash. Or that part may have to wait for the Exceedingly Grumpy Editor's Guide to Small Business Accounting Packages.

Your editor's final comment is this: for many years, there was only one free personal finance application of any note: GnuCash. It is now interesting to see there are three viable programs out there. The situation has changed significantly - for the better - over the past year. Come back for the second part (to be published, probably, near the beginning of October) to complete the tour of what these programs can do, and a final recommendation from the editor.

[Part 2 is now available]

Comments (61 posted)

Mercurial: an alternative to git

One of the more visible outcomes of the BitKeeper fiasco earlier this year was the development of git to replace the use of BitKeeper for kernel development. A less prominent, but equally capable alternative began development at roughly the same time. Matt Mackall started work on Mercurial just a few days after git and since that time it has made great strides as a distributed source code management system. It has matured to the point where at least one large project, the virtual machine monitor Xen, is using it to manage their code.

Mercurial, like BitKeeper, git and others is targeted at projects where the developers are spread out geographically and need to be able to perform source code management functions without the bottleneck of a central repository. Matt adopted the design goals that Linus used for git (speed, distributed operation, and trustability) and added the additional constraints that it should be CPU, storage, and bandwidth efficient. Mercurial is written in Python, with some C extensions for CPU intensive pieces and is fairly small, weighing in around 7500 lines of code.

Disk based storage of Mercurial revisions is done using delta compressed revision logs (revlogs) that are stored with disk access optimization in mind. The revlogs are stored in a directory structure that mirrors the structure of the project and filesystems are generally optimized for this kind of access. Over time, fragmentation of revlogs will occur, but a tar or copy of the directory will have the side effect of defragmentation. Other SCMs that use filenames based on the SHA1 hash of the contents (git for example) tend to require more disk seeking because file locality is a function of the hash rather than the filename. Because the revlogs are smaller than keeping each individual revision of a file as a separate object, Mercurial uses less bandwidth when syncing repositories as well.

A single command, called 'hg' after the chemical symbol for mercury, is the command line interface to Mercurial and provides a consistent set of switches used for various source code management tasks. Users of CVS or subversion will find it immediately familiar to type commands like 'hg commit' or 'hg update'. Also, there is the 'hg help' command which gives a quick overview of the commands available and a summary line for each of the individual commands.

The framework that Mercurial provides will be familiar to anyone who has used a distributed SCM. The push/pull style of development where tree maintainers pull changes from contributor's feature branches and merge them into their current working tree is the model best supported by Mercurial. Both HTTP and SSH are supported for network syncing and the hg command itself can be run as a server to export a repository for pulling via hg and for browsing via the web.

Various extensions and other tools have been created for Mercurial, or, in some cases, ported from git. Visualization tools for examining repositories are available as well as conversion utilities to convert repositories from other SCM systems. Chris Mason's Mercurial Queues extension adds patch management features, similar to quilt, to hg.

Interoperability with git is clearly a feature desired by Matt and the other developers. Matt's intent with Mercurial was to create a tool that he could use for kernel development and since the various official kernel trees are using git repositories, tools to extract information from git and into Mercurial have been created. There is a repository that tracks Linus' git repository for the 2.6 kernel and there are plans to add a git export feature to Mercurial.

Mercurial has an active development community, a wiki with a great deal of information for new users, and a very responsive mailing list. It is a fast, scalable, easy to use, and generally well thought out system that is being used for kernel and other development. It currently lacks a few features that developers might want (a way to compare repositories for example), but the pace of development has been rapid and these holes are likely to be filled quickly. For anyone who is thinking about using a distributed SCM, Mercurial is definitely worth a look.

Comments (28 posted)

Page editor: Rebecca Sobol

Security

Security news

Firefox buffer overflow and full disclosure

Tom Ferris announced a potentially exploitable buffer overflow in Firefox this week and the discussion surrounding the flaw has focused on the nature of the announcement more than the bug itself. Advocates of full disclosure and those opposed to it have clashed on various internet sites.

The bug is in the handling of international domain names (IDN) and the proof of concept released by Ferris is a specially crafted URL that will cause Firefox 1.0.6 and earlier to crash. Unlike other similar bugs, the user does not need to actually follow the link, just parsing the URL in the page will cause Firefox to crash. It is not yet known whether a malicious person can exploit this to execute arbitrary code on the host but Ferris claims that it can be done in his bug report.

A workaround that disables IDN parsing was quickly released by the Mozilla team, and both Red Hat and Fedora released updates to fix the buffer overflow.

Complaints have been heard about the amount of time Ferris gave to the Mozilla team to fix the problem before he announced the flaw on the full-disclosure mailing list. His report states that he reported the problem on September 4, but the entry in bugzilla was made on September 6. He disclosed the problem on September 8 before a fix was available and many people find that to be irresponsible.

Full disclosure is a contentious issue and many people argue that security flaws should be reported to the author of the software, and that they should be given a 'reasonable' amount of time to investigate and fix the problem before it is announced to the world. The presumption is that the delay reduces or eliminates the possibility of an exploit being crafted while the program is vulnerable. The proponents of disclosure point out that it is quite possible that other people, possibly having bad intentions, know about the flaw already and are working on exploits or have already deployed them. Even if there is no known exploit 'in the wild', security conscious users may wish to stop using the affected program until it can be fixed, and without disclosure they do not have the information necessary to take that step.

An additional complication arises because Firefox has been touted as a more secure alternative to Internet Explorer and many less than technically savvy people have installed it. These users do not tend to frequent LWN or other sites that report on security issues and, unfortunately, are likely to ignore the problem even if they do find out about it. This problem is not unique to Firefox, of course, nor to free software in general, but as free software extends its reach, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. A widespread exploit in a free software package, even if the vulnerability has already been fixed, will provide the competition with ample opportunities to suggest that all free software is insecure.

Comments (32 posted)

New vulnerabilities

common-lisp-controller: design error

Package(s):	common-lisp-controller	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2657
Created:	September 14, 2005	Updated:	November 21, 2005
Description:	François-René Rideau discovered a bug in common-lisp-controller, a Common Lisp source and compiler manager, that allows a local user to compile malicious code into a cache directory which is executed by another user if that user has not used Common Lisp before.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-811-2 2005-11-21 Debian DSA-811-1 2005-09-14

Comments (none posted)

mozilla: buffer overflow

Package(s):	mozilla	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2871
Created:	September 12, 2005	Updated:	October 20, 2005
Description:	The Mozilla browser, Firefox and Thunderbird have a buffer overflow vulnerability. A local user can be tricked into clicking URL that can cause the local application to crash, and possibly execute arbitrary code. See this article for more information.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-868-1 2005-10-20 Debian DSA-866-1 2005-10-20 Red Hat RHSA-2005:791-01 2005-10-06 Slackware SSA:2005-278-01 2005-10-06 Debian DSA-837-1 2005-10-02 Fedora FEDORA-2005-963 2005-09-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-962 2005-09-30 Gentoo 200509-11 2005-09-18 Ubuntu USN-181-1 2005-09-12 Red Hat RHSA-2005:769-01 2005-09-09 Red Hat RHSA-2005:768-01 2005-09-09 Fedora FEDORA-2005-873 2005-09-10 Fedora FEDORA-2005-874 2005-09-10 Fedora FEDORA-2005-871 2005-09-10 Fedora FEDORA-2005-872 2005-09-10

Comments (none posted)

mysql: buffer overflow

Package(s):	mysql	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2558
Created:	September 12, 2005	Updated:	January 12, 2006
Description:	The mysql CREATE FUNCTION can be used to create a buffer overflow. A specially crafted long function name can be used by a local attacker to crash the server or execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the server.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:167803 2006-01-10 Ubuntu USN-180-2 2005-12-05 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.024 2005-12-03 Debian DSA-833-2 2005-10-04 Debian DSA-833-1 2005-10-01 Debian DSA-831-1 2005-09-30 Debian DSA-829-1 2005-09-30 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:163 2005-09-12 Ubuntu USN-180-1 2005-09-12

Comments (none posted)

tdiary: cross-site request forgery

Package(s):	tdiary	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2411
Created:	September 12, 2005	Updated:	September 13, 2005
Description:	The tdiary web log utility has a cross-site request forgery that can be used by remote attackers to alter a user's local information.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-808-1 2005-09-12

Comments (none posted)

util-linux: unintentional grant of privileges by umount

Package(s):	util-linux	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2876
Created:	September 13, 2005	Updated:	December 19, 2005
Description:	Linux umount command as provided in the util-linux package in versions 2.8 to 2.12q, 2.13-pre1 and 2.13-pre2 grants root privileges. See this BugTraq post for more information.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:168326 2005-12-18 Red Hat RHSA-2005:782-01 2005-10-11 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:021 2005-09-30 Debian DSA-825-1 2005-09-29 Debian DSA-823-1 2005-09-29 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:167 2005-09-20 Gentoo 200509-15 2005-09-20 Ubuntu USN-184-1 2005-09-19 Fedora FEDORA-2005-886 2005-09-14 Fedora FEDORA-2005-887 2005-09-14 Slackware SSA:2005-255-02 2005-09-13

Comments (none posted)

xorg-x11: heap overflow

Package(s):	xorg-x11	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2495
Created:	September 12, 2005	Updated:	March 8, 2006
Description:	The pixmap memory allocation code in the X.Org X window system is vulnerable to an integer overflow, a local user can use this to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:168264-2 2006-03-07 Slackware SSA:2005-269-02 2005-09-26 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:056 2005-09-26 Debian DSA-816-1 2005-09-19 Fedora FEDORA-2005-894 2005-09-16 Fedora FEDORA-2005-893 2005-09-16 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0049 2005-09-16 Red Hat RHSA-2005:501-01 2005-09-15 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:164 2005-09-13 Red Hat RHSA-2005:396-01 2005-09-13 Red Hat RHSA-2005:329-01 2005-09-12 Ubuntu USN-182-1 2005-09-12 Gentoo 200509-07 2005-09-12

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

a2ps: input validation error

Package(s):	a2ps	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-1170 CAN-2004-1377
Created:	November 26, 2004	Updated:	December 19, 2005
Description:	The GNU a2ps utility fails to properly sanitize filenames, which can be abused by a malicious user to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable application. More information at Security Focus.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152870 2005-12-17 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:097 2005-06-07 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.003 2005-01-17 Gentoo 200501-02 2005-01-04 Debian DSA-612-1 2004-12-20 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:140 2004-11-25

Comments (none posted)

apache information disclosure if modssl=yes

Package(s):	apache	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2700
Created:	September 2, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	An information disclosure vulnerability was discovered in mod_ssl, the SSL/TLS module of the Apache webserver. When "SSLVerifyClient optional" was configured in the global virtual host configuration, an "SSLVerifyClient require" in per-location context was not enforced.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:166941 2005-11-09 Gentoo 200509-12 2005-09-19 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:052 2005-09-12 Red Hat RHSA-2005:773-01 2005-09-15 Slackware SSA:2005-251-03 2005-09-14 Debian DSA-807-1 2005-09-12 Slackware SSA:2005-251-02 2005-09-09 Fedora FEDORA-2005-849 2005-09-07 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:161 2005-09-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-848 2005-09-07 Debian DSA-805-1 2005-09-08 Ubuntu USN-177-1 2005-09-07 Red Hat RHSA-2005:608-01 2005-09-06 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.017 2005-09-02

Comments (none posted)

httpd: off-by-one overflow and cross-site scripting

Package(s):	apache httpd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1268 CAN-2005-2088
Created:	July 25, 2005	Updated:	November 7, 2005
Description:	Watchfire reported a flaw that occurred when using the Apache server as an HTTP proxy. A remote attacker could send an HTTP request with both a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header and a "Content-Length" header. This caused Apache to incorrectly handle and forward the body of the request in a way that the receiving server processes it as a separate HTTP request. This could allow the bypass of Web application firewall protection or lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Marc Stern reported an off-by-one overflow in the mod_ssl CRL verification callback. In order to exploit this issue the Apache server would need to be configured to use a malicious certificate revocation list (CRL).
Alerts:	Slackware SSA:2005-310-04 2005-11-07 Debian DSA-803-1 2005-09-08 Ubuntu USN-160-2 2005-09-07 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:046 2005-08-16 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:157701 2005-08-10 Ubuntu USN-160-1 2005-08-04 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:130 2005-08-03 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:129 2005-08-03 Fedora FEDORA-2005-638 2005-08-02 Fedora FEDORA-2005-639 2005-08-02 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0038 2005-07-29 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:018 2005-07-28 Red Hat RHSA-2005:582-01 2005-07-25

Comments (none posted)

awstats: command injection vulnerability

Package(s):	awstats	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1527
Created:	August 11, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	AWStats has a command injection vulnerability that can be exploited by specially crafting referrer URLs that contain Perl code. The code can then be executed with the privileges of the web server.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-892-1 2005-11-10 Gentoo 200508-07 2005-08-16 Ubuntu USN-167-1 2005-08-11

Comments (2 posted)

bzip2: race condition and infinite loop

Package(s):	bzip2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0953 CAN-2005-1260
Created:	May 17, 2005	Updated:	January 10, 2007
Description:	A race condition in bzip2 1.0.2 and earlier allows local users to modify permissions of arbitrary files via a hard link attack on a file while it is being decompressed, whose permissions are changed by bzip2 after the decompression is complete. Also specially crafted bzip2 archives may cause an infinite loop in the decompressor.
Alerts:	rPath rPSA-2007-0004-1 2007-01-09 Debian DSA-741-1 2005-07-07 Red Hat RHSA-2005:474-01 2005-06-16 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.008 2005-06-10 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:015 2005-06-07 Debian DSA-730-1 2005-05-27 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:091 2005-05-18 Ubuntu USN-127-1 2005-05-17

Comments (2 posted)

cpio: directory traversal

Package(s):	cpio	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1111
Created:	June 20, 2005	Updated:	December 26, 2005
Description:	There is a vulnerability in cpio (2.6 and previous) that allows a malicious cpio file to extract to an arbitrary directory of the attackers choice. cpio will extract to the path specified in the cpio file, this path can be absolute.
Alerts:	Mandriva MDKSA-2005:237 2005-12-23 Red Hat RHSA-2005:806-01 2005-11-10 Debian DSA-846-1 2005-10-07 Ubuntu USN-189-1 2005-09-29 Red Hat RHSA-2005:378-01 2005-07-21 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116-1 2005-07-19 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116 2005-07-11 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0030 2005-06-24 Gentoo 200506-16 2005-06-20

Comments (1 posted)

CUPS: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	CUPS	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-2154
Created:	July 14, 2005	Updated:	September 20, 2005
Description:	The CUPS printing system has a problem with queue name case-sensitivity matching that can cause a security policy override. An unauthorized user can use this to gain print to a protected queue.
Alerts:	Mandriva MDKSA-2005:165 2005-09-15 Ubuntu USN-185-1 2005-09-20 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:163274 2005-09-14 Red Hat RHSA-2005:571-01 2005-07-14

Comments (none posted)

cvs: insecure temp file

Package(s):	cvs	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2693
Created:	August 23, 2005	Updated:	September 9, 2005
Description:	Insecure temporary file usage was found in the cvsbug program. It is possible that a malicious user could use this to execute arbitrary instructions as the user running cvsbug.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-806-1 2005-09-09 Debian DSA-802-1 2005-09-07 Red Hat RHSA-2005:756-01 2005-09-06 Fedora FEDORA-2005-791 2005-08-23 Fedora FEDORA-2005-790 2005-08-23

Comments (none posted)

cyrus-imapd: buffer overflows

Package(s):	cyrus-imapd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0546
Created:	February 23, 2005	Updated:	April 9, 2006
Description:	Cyrus-imapd, prior to version 2.2.12, contains several buffer overflows which could be exploited by an (authenticated) attacker to run code on the server system.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:156290 2006-04-04 Red Hat RHSA-2005:408-01 2005-05-17 Fedora FEDORA-2005-339 2005-04-27 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.005 2005-04-05 Conectiva CLA-2005:937 2005-03-17 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:051 2005-03-04 Ubuntu USN-87-1 2005-02-28 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:009 2005-02-24 Gentoo 200502-29 2005-02-23

Comments (none posted)

dhcpcd: denial of service

Package(s):	dhcpcd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1848
Created:	July 13, 2005	Updated:	September 13, 2005
Description:	The dhcpcd DHCP client can be tricked into reading past the end of a buffer, causing it to crash.
Alerts:	Slackware SSA:2005-255-01 2005-09-13 Red Hat RHSA-2005:603-01 2005-07-27 Gentoo 200507-16 2005-07-15 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:117 2005-07-12 Debian DSA-750-1 2005-07-11

Comments (none posted)

elm: buffer overflow

Package(s):	elm	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2665
Created:	August 23, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	A buffer overflow flaw in Elm was discovered that was triggered by viewing a mailbox containing a message with a carefully crafted 'Expires' header. An attacker could create a malicious message that would execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user who received it.
Alerts:	Slackware SSA:2005-311-01 2005-11-08 Red Hat RHSA-2005:755-01 2005-08-23

Comments (none posted)

emacs21: format string vulnerability in "movemail"

Package(s):	emacs21	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0100
Created:	February 7, 2005	Updated:	May 15, 2006
Description:	Max Vozeler discovered a format string vulnerability in the "movemail" utility of Emacs. By sending specially crafted packets, a malicious POP3 server could cause a buffer overflow, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user and the "mail" group.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152898 2006-05-12 Debian DSA-685-1 2005-02-17 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:038 2005-02-15 Gentoo 200502-20 2005-02-15 Fedora FEDORA-2005-146 2005-02-14 Fedora FEDORA-2005-145 2005-02-14 Red Hat RHSA-2005:133-01 2005-02-15 Red Hat RHSA-2005:110-01 2005-02-15 Red Hat RHSA-2005:134-01 2005-02-10 Red Hat RHSA-2005:112-01 2005-02-10 Fedora FEDORA-2005-116 2005-02-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-115 2005-02-08 Debian DSA-671-1 2005-02-08 Debian DSA-670-1 2005-02-08 Ubuntu USN-76-1 2005-02-07

Comments (none posted)

enscript: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):	enscript	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-1184 CAN-2004-1185 CAN-2004-1186
Created:	January 21, 2005	Updated:	May 27, 2006
Description:	Erik Sjölund has discovered several security relevant problems in enscript, a program to convert ASCII text into Postscript and other formats. Unsanitized input can cause the execution of arbitrary commands via EPSF pipe support. Due to missing sanitizing of filenames it is possible that a specially crafted filename can cause arbitrary commands to be executed. Multiple buffer overflows can cause the program to crash.
Alerts:	rPath rPSA-2006-0083-1 2006-05-26 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152892 2005-12-17 Red Hat RHSA-2005:040-01 2005-02-15 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:033 2005-02-10 Gentoo 200502-03 2005-02-02 Red Hat RHSA-2005:039-01 2005-02-01 Fedora FEDORA-2005-096 2005-01-31 Fedora FEDORA-2005-092 2005-01-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-091 2005-01-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-016 2005-01-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-015 2005-01-26 Ubuntu USN-68-1 2005-01-24 Debian DSA-654-1 2005-01-21

Comments (none posted)

ethereal: dissector vulnerabilities

Package(s):	ethereal	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2365 CAN-2005-2367 CAN-2005-2360 CAN-2005-2361 CAN-2005-2362 CAN-2005-2363 CAN-2005-2364 CAN-2005-2366
Created:	July 28, 2005	Updated:	October 10, 2005
Description:	The ethereal network traffic analyzer has several vulnerabilities, involving traffic dissectors. Dissectors have buffer overflows, format string overflows, and crashing/denial of service issues.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-853-1 2005-10-09 Red Hat RHSA-2005:687-01 2005-08-10 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:131 2005-08-04 Fedora FEDORA-2005-655 2005-07-29 Fedora FEDORA-2005-651 2005-07-28 Gentoo 200507-27 2005-07-28

Comments (none posted)

evolution: format string issues

Package(s):	evolution	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2549 CAN-2005-2550
Created:	August 15, 2005	Updated:	March 23, 2006
Description:	Evolution has format string issues. SITIC advisory SA05-001 contains more information.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-1016-1 2006-03-23 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:054 2005-09-16 Red Hat RHSA-2005:267-01 2005-08-29 Gentoo 200508-12 2005-08-23 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:141 2005-08-17 Fedora FEDORA-2005-742 2005-08-11 Fedora FEDORA-2005-743 2005-08-11

Comments (2 posted)

Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip

Package(s):	foomatic	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0801
Created:	September 20, 2004	Updated:	May 31, 2006
Description:	There is a vulnerability in the foomatic-filters package. This vulnerability is due to insufficient checking of command-line parameters and environment variables in the foomatic-rip filter. This vulnerability may allow both local and remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the print server with the permissions of the spooler.
Alerts:	SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:026 2006-05-30 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:2076 2004-11-05 Conectiva CLA-2004:880 2004-10-27 Fedora FEDORA-2004-303 2004-09-21 Gentoo 200409-24 2004-09-20

Comments (none posted)

gaim: buffer overflow

Package(s):	gaim	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2103
Created:	August 10, 2005	Updated:	February 27, 2006
Description:	Gaim suffers from a heap-based buffer overflow which can be exploited via a hostile "away message" to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:158543 2006-02-25 Slackware SSA:2005-242-03 2005-08-31 Fedora FEDORA-2005-751 2005-08-17 Fedora FEDORA-2005-750 2005-08-17 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:139 2005-08-15 Gentoo 200508-06 2005-08-15 Ubuntu USN-168-1 2005-08-12 Red Hat RHSA-2005:589-01 2005-08-09

Comments (none posted)

gdb: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	gdb	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1704 CAN-2005-1705
Created:	May 20, 2005	Updated:	August 11, 2006
Description:	Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo Linux Security Audit Team discovered an integer overflow in the BFD library, resulting in a heap overflow. A review also showed that by default, gdb insecurely sources initialization files from the working directory. Successful exploitation would result in the execution of arbitrary code on loading a specially crafted object file or the execution of arbitrary commands.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2006:0354-01 2006-08-10 Red Hat RHSA-2006:0368-01 2006-07-20 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:215 2005-11-23 Fedora FEDORA-2005-1033 2005-10-27 Fedora FEDORA-2005-1032 2005-10-27 Red Hat RHSA-2005:801-01 2005-10-18 Red Hat RHSA-2005:763-01 2005-10-11 Red Hat RHSA-2005:709-01 2005-10-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:673-01 2005-10-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:659-01 2005-09-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-498 2005-06-29 Fedora FEDORA-2005-497 2005-06-29 Gentoo 200506-01 2005-06-01 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0025 2005-05-31 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:095 2005-05-30 Ubuntu USN-136-2 2005-05-27 Ubuntu USN-136-1 2005-05-27 Ubuntu USN-135-1 2005-05-27 Gentoo 200505-15 2005-05-20

Comments (5 posted)

gtk-pixbuf, gtk2: denial of service

Package(s):	gdk-pixbuf gtk2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0891
Created:	March 30, 2005	Updated:	December 19, 2005
Description:	The BMP image processing code in gdk-pixbuf and gtk2 contains a denial of service vulnerability exploitable via a specially crafted image file.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:155510 2005-12-17 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:154272 2005-07-15 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:010 2005-04-08 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:069 2005-04-07 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:068 2005-04-07 Ubuntu USN-108-1 2005-04-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:343-01 2005-04-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:344-01 2005-04-01 Fedora FEDORA-2005-268 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-267 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-266 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-265 2005-03-30

Comments (none posted)

gettext: Insecure temporary file handling

Package(s):	gettext	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0966
Created:	October 11, 2004	Updated:	March 1, 2006
Description:	gettext insecurely creates temporary files in world-writeable directories with predictable names. A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When gettext is called, this would result in file access with the rights of the user running the utility, which could be the root user.
Alerts:	Mandriva MDKSA-2006:051 2006-02-28 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:136323 2006-01-09 Gentoo 200410-10:02 2004-10-10 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.055 2004-12-23 Ubuntu USN-5-1 2004-10-27 Gentoo 200410-10 2004-10-10

Comments (1 posted)

ghostscript: symlink vulnerabilities

Package(s):	ghostscript	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0967
Created:	October 20, 2004	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	The ghostscript package (prior to version 7.07.1-r7) contains several scripts which are vulnerable to symlink attacks.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:081-01 2005-09-28 Ubuntu USN-3-1 2004-10-27 Gentoo 200410-18 2004-10-20

Comments (none posted)

glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script

Package(s):	glibc	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0968
Created:	October 21, 2004	Updated:	November 14, 2005
Description:	The catchsegv script in the glibc package has a symlink vulnerability that may allow a local user to overwrite arbitrary files with the permissions of the user that is running the script.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152848 2005-11-13 Red Hat RHSA-2005:261-01 2005-04-28 Debian DSA-636-1 2005-01-12 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:159 2004-12-29 Red Hat RHSA-2004:586-01 2004-12-20 Fedora FEDORA-2004-356 2004-11-11 Ubuntu USN-4-1 2004-10-27 Gentoo 200410-19 2004-10-21

Comments (none posted)

grip: buffer overflow

Package(s):	grip	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0706
Created:	March 10, 2005	Updated:	September 16, 2005
Description:	Grip, a CD ripper, has a buffer overflow vulnerability that can occur when the CDDB server returns more than 16 matches.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152919 2005-09-15 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:074 2005-04-20 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:075 2005-04-20 Gentoo 200504-07 2005-04-08 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:066 2005-04-01 Red Hat RHSA-2005:304-01 2005-03-28 Gentoo 200503-21 2005-03-17 Fedora FEDORA-2005-203 2005-03-09 Fedora FEDORA-2005-202 2005-03-09

Comments (none posted)

groff: insecure temporary directory

Package(s):	groff	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0969
Created:	November 1, 2004	Updated:	February 9, 2006
Description:	Recently, Trustix Secure Linux discovered a vulnerability in the groff package. The utility "groffer" created a temporary directory in an insecure way, which allowed exploitation of a race condition to create or overwrite files with the privileges of the user invoking the program.
Alerts:	Mandriva MDKSA-2006:038 2006-02-08 Gentoo 200411-15 2004-11-08 Ubuntu USN-13-1 2004-11-01

Comments (none posted)

gzip: arbitrary command execution

Package(s):	gzip	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0758
Created:	August 1, 2005	Updated:	January 9, 2007
Description:	zgrep in gzip before 1.3.5 does not handle shell metacharacters like '|' and '&' properly when they occurred in input file names. This could be exploited to execute arbitrary commands with user privileges if zgrep is run in an untrusted directory with specially crafted file names.
Alerts:	OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.002 2007-01-08 Mandriva MDKSA-2006:027 2006-01-30 Mandriva MDKSA-2006:026 2006-01-30 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:158801 2005-11-14 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:157696 2005-08-10 Ubuntu USN-161-1 2005-08-04 Ubuntu USN-158-1 2005-08-01

Comments (2 posted)

htdig: cross site scripting

Package(s):	htdig	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0085
Created:	February 14, 2005	Updated:	January 10, 2006
Description:	Michael Krax discovered that ht://Dig fails to validate the 'config' parameter before displaying an error message containing the parameter. This flaw could allow an attacker to conduct cross-site scripting attacks.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152907 2006-01-09 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:063 2005-03-31 Red Hat RHSA-2005:090-01 2005-02-15 Debian DSA-680-1 2005-02-14 Gentoo 200502-16 2005-02-13

Comments (none posted)

imap: buffer overflow in c-client

Package(s):	imap	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0297
Created:	February 18, 2005	Updated:	April 9, 2006
Description:	A buffer overflow flaw was found in the c-client IMAP client. An attacker could create a malicious IMAP server that if connected to by a victim could execute arbitrary code on the client machine.
Alerts:	Fedora-Legacy FLSA:184074 2006-04-04 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152912 2005-05-12 Red Hat RHSA-2005:114-01 2005-02-18

Comments (none posted)

imlib2: buffer overflows

Package(s):	imlib2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0802 CAN-2004-0817
Created:	September 8, 2004	Updated:	October 26, 2005
Description:	The imlib2 library contains buffer overflows in the BMP handling code.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-548-2 2005-10-26 Conectiva CLA-2004:870 2004-09-28 Debian DSA-552-1 2004-09-22 Debian DSA-548-1 2004-09-16 Red Hat RHSA-2004:465-01 2004-09-15 Gentoo 200409-12 2004-09-08 Fedora FEDORA-2004-301 2004-09-09 Fedora FEDORA-2004-300 2004-09-09 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:089 2004-09-07

Comments (none posted)

junkbuster: heap corruption and settings modification

Package(s):	junkbuster	CVE #(s):	CVE-2005-1108 CVE-2005-1109
Created:	April 13, 2005	Updated:	November 5, 2005
Description:	JunkBuster through version 2.02-r2 contains two vulnerabilities: a heap corruption bug and a possible privacy violation.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-713-1 2005-04-21 Gentoo 200504-11 2005-04-13

Comments (1 posted)

kdebase: local root vulnerability

Package(s):	kdebase	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2494
Created:	September 7, 2005	Updated:	August 11, 2006
Description:	The kdebase package (and kcheckpass in particular) found in KDE versions 3.2.0 through 3.4.2 suffers from a lock file handling error which can enable a local attacker to obtain root access. See this advisory for details.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2006:0582-01 2006-08-10 Debian DSA-815-1 2005-09-16 Slackware SSA:2005-251-01 2005-09-09 Ubuntu USN-176-1 2005-09-07 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:160 2005-09-06

Comments (none posted)

kdeedu: tempfile handling vulnerabilities

Package(s):	kdeedu	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2101
Created:	August 15, 2005	Updated:	September 22, 2005
Description:	Ben Burton notified the KDE security team about several tempfile handling related vulnerabilities in langen2kvtml, a conversion script for kvoctrain. The script must be manually invoked. The script uses known filenames in /tmp which allow an local attacker to overwrite files writeable by the user invoking the conversion script.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-818-1 2005-09-22 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:159 2005-09-06 Fedora FEDORA-2005-744 2005-08-16 Fedora FEDORA-2005-745 2005-08-15

Comments (none posted)

kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak

Package(s):	kdelibs kate kwrite	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1920
Created:	July 19, 2005	Updated:	November 27, 2006
Description:	Kate / Kwrite, as shipped with KDE 3.2.x up to including 3.4.0, creates a file backup before saving a modified file. These backup files are created with default permissions, even if the original file had more strict permissions set. See this advisory for more information.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200611-21 2006-11-27 Debian DSA-804-2 2005-11-10 Debian DSA-804-1 2005-09-08 Red Hat RHSA-2005:612-01 2005-07-27 Ubuntu USN-150-1 2005-07-21 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:122 2005-07-20 Fedora FEDORA-2005-594 2005-07-19

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	kernel	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1913 CAN-2005-1761
Created: