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Home >> Browse Vulnerability Assessment Database >> Debian Local Security Checks >> [DSA044] DSA-044-1 mailx

Vulnerability Assessment Details

[DSA044] DSA-044-1 mailx

Vulnerability Assessment Summary
DSA-044-1 mailx

Detailed Explanation for this Vulnerability Assessment
The mail program (a simple tool to read and send
email) as distributed with Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 has a buffer overflow
in the input parsing code. Since mail is installed setgid mail by
default this permited local users to use it to gain access to mail
group.

Since the mail code was never written to be secure fixing it
properly would mean a large rewrite. Instead of doing this we decided
to no longer install it setgid. This means that it can no longer lock
your mailbox properly on systems for which you need group mail to
write to the mailspool, but it will still work for sending email.

This has been fixed in mailx version 8.1.1-10.1.5. If you have
suidmanager installed you can also make this manually with the
following command:
suidregister /usr/bin/mail root root 0755

Solution : http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-044
Network Security Threat Level: High

Networks Security ID: 2457

Vulnerability Assessment Copyright: This script is (C) 2005 Michel Arboi

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