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Home >> Browse Vulnerability Assessment Database >> Red Hat Local Security Checks >> RHSA-2003-055: rxvt

Vulnerability Assessment Details

RHSA-2003-055: rxvt

Vulnerability Assessment Summary
Check for the version of the rxvt packages

Detailed Explanation for this Vulnerability Assessment

Updated rxvt packages are available which fix a number of vulnerabilities
in the handling of escape sequences.

[Updated 12 March 2003]
Added packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux WS

Rxvt is a color VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System. A number
of issues have been found in the escape sequence handling of Rxvt.
These could be potentially exploited if a possible hacker can cause carefully
crafted escape sequences to be displayed on an rxvt terminal being used by
their victim.

One of the features which most terminal emulators support is the ability
for the shell to set the title of the window using an escape sequence.
Certain xterm variants, including rxvt, also provide an escape sequence for
reporting the current window title. This essentially takes the current
title and places it directly on the command line. Since it is not
possible to embed a carriage return into the window title itself, the
attacker would have to convince the victim to press the Enter key for the
title to be processed as a command, although the attacker can perform a
number of actions to increase the likelihood of this happening.

A certain escape sequence when displayed in rxvt will create an arbitrary
file.

It is possible to add malicious items to the dynamic menus through an
escape sequence.

Users of Rxvt are advised to upgrade to these errata packages which contain
a patch to disable the title reporting functionality and patches to correct
the other issues.

Red Hat would like to thank H D Moore for bringing these issues to our
attention.

Solution : http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-055.html
Network Security Threat Level: High

Networks Security ID:

Vulnerability Assessment Copyright: This script is Copyright (C) 2004 Tenable Network Security

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