Links: Arbitrary Samba command execution

Background

Links is a web browser running in both graphics and text modes.

Description

Teemu Salmela discovered that Links does not properly validate “smb://” URLs when it runs smbclient commands.

Impact

A remote attacker could entice a user to browse to a specially crafted “smb://” URL and execute arbitrary Samba commands, which would allow the overwriting of arbitrary local files or the upload or the download of arbitrary files. This vulnerability can be exploited only if “smbclient” is installed on the victim’s computer, which is provided by the “samba” Gentoo package.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Links users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=www-client/links-2.1_pre26"