Vulnerability Note VU#626919

'periodic' is a script used in conjunction with cron to execute jobs at specified intervals. During ordinary work, periodic creates temporary files with predictable names of the form /tmp/periodic.$PID where $PID is the process identifier of the process running periodic. Because periodic is called by cron it runs with enhanced privileges. By polling the system for an executing instance of periodic, an intruder can exploit a race condition and create a symbolic link from /tmp/periodic.$PID to a file of the intruders choosing. The target file will be overwritten.

An attacker or intruder who has write access to the local file system and who can discover the PIDs of other processes (both capabilities are typical for ordinary local users) can overwrite any file
on the system regardless of the permissions on the file. This ability can be leveraged to gain root access in many circumstances.

Apply a patch from your vendor.