USN-76-1: Emacs vulnerability

Publication date

7 February 2005

Overview

Emacs vulnerability

Releases


Details

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 have been
exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user
and the “mail” group (since “movemail” is installed as “setgid mail”).

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 have been
exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user
and the “mail” group (since “movemail” is installed as “setgid mail”).

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
4.10 warty emacs21-bin-common – 

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