Newsbeuter: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code

Background

Newsbeuter is a RSS/Atom feed reader for the text console.

Description

J.H.M. Dassen reported that the open-in-browser command does not properly escape shell metacharacters in the URL before passing it to system().

Impact

A remote attacker could entice a user to open a feed with specially crafted URLs, possibly resulting in the remote execution of arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Newsbeuter users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=net-news/newsbeuter-1.2"