1. Ubuntu Security Notices
  2. USN-278-1

USN-278-1: gdm vulnerability

Publication date

4 May 2006

Overview

gdm vulnerability

Releases

Details

Marcus Meissner discovered a race condition in gdm’s handling of the
~/.ICEauthority file permissions. A local attacker could exploit this
to become the owner of an arbitrary file in the system. When getting
control over automatically executed scripts (like cron jobs), the
attacker could eventually leverage this flaw to execute arbitrary
commands with root privileges.

Marcus Meissner discovered a race condition in gdm’s handling of the
~/.ICEauthority file permissions. A local attacker could exploit this
to become the owner of an arbitrary file in the system. When getting
control over automatically executed scripts (like cron jobs), the
attacker could eventually leverage this flaw to execute arbitrary
commands with root privileges.

Update instructions

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

Learn more about how to get the fixes.

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu Release Package Version
5.10 breezy gdm – 
5.04 hoary gdm – 

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References

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