Vulnerability Note VU#600777

gv contains buffer overflow in sscanf() function

Overview

A remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability exists in gv.

I. Description

A remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability exists in gv. gv allows a user to view and navigate PostScript and PDF documents by providing an interface to the ghostscript interpreter. This vulnerability can allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable host.

II. Impact

A remote attacker can execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable host with the privileges of the victim.

III. Solution

Apply a patch.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Notified
Debian	Vulnerable	17-Oct-2002
Gentoo Linux	Vulnerable	17-Oct-2002
KDE Desktop Environment Project	Vulnerable	17-Oct-2002
Red Hat Inc.	Vulnerable	17-Oct-2002

References

http://www.idefense.com/advisory/09.26.02.txt
http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv/
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2002-207.html
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=bugtraq&m=103305615613319&w=2

Credit

Thanks to David Endler for reporting this vulnerability.

This document was written by Ian A Finlay.

Other Information

Date Public:	2002-09-26
Date First Published:	2002-10-17
Date Last Updated:	2002-10-17
CERT Advisory:
CVE-ID(s):	CAN-2002-0838
NVD-ID(s):	CAN-2002-0838
US-CERT Technical Alerts:
Severity Metric:	16.50
Document Revision:	13

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