On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 05:18:34PM +1300, John Morton wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 March 2002 15:52, Steve Langasek wrote:

> > >   Doesnt dpkg also compile with a static zlib? Why does it not make
> > > this list?

> > What Internet-accessible port are you running dpkg on? :)

> > dpkg doesn't normally run on a network port, so exploiting it doesn't
> > get you local access unless you already have it; and it's not suid, so
> > running it from commandline doesn't let you get root.  Therefore, there
> > is no security hole opened by a vulnerability in dpkg.

> I think this reasoning is flawed - a vulnerable zlib in dpkg would be 
> exploited by a trojaned deb package that someone unwittingly downloads, and 
> as dpkg tends to be run as root, that would buy the attacker root privilages. 

> Admittedly, as things stand, a trojaned package could do many of those things 
> with doctored install scripts anyway, but this vulnerability does matter if 
> the package has to be uncompressed just to examine it.

True.  Regardless of how much of a risk this really is, one of the dpkg
maintainers has indicated that a fixed package is on its way.

Regards,
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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