netscape.4.5.talkback.txt

`Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 22:45:02 -0800  
From: Aleph One <[email protected]>  
To: [email protected]  
Subject: Security hole in Netscape Communicator's 4.5 "talkback" function  
  
______________________________________________________________________________  
  
SuSE Security Announcement  
  
Package: netscape-4.5-9  
Date: Thu Mar 18 10:22:11 CET 1999  
Affected: unix operating systems using netscape communicator 4.5  
  
______________________________________________________________________________  
  
A security whole was discovered in the package mentioned above.  
Please update as soon as possible or disable the service if you are using  
this software on your SuSE Linux installation(s).  
  
Other Linux distributions or operating systems might be affected as  
well, please contact your vendor for information about this issue.  
  
Please note, that that we provide this information on as "as-is" basis only.  
There is no warranty whatsoever and no liability for any direct, indirect or  
incidental damage arising from this information or the installation of  
the update package.  
  
______________________________________________________________________________  
  
1. Problem Description  
  
The Netscape Communicator 4.5 comes with "talkback", a quality  
enhancement tool by Fullcircle (www.fullcircle.com).  
If the communicator crashs for any reason, the file with the  
name  
  
/tmp/.$UID.talkback  
is read in, and the pid in this file is killed.  
After that, the file is truncated/created without checks for  
{sym|hard}links and the pid of the current talkback process is  
written into the file.  
  
2. Impact  
  
Anyone on the system can kill a process of users if their communicator  
crashs.  
Anyone on the system can overwrite/create any file an attacked users#  
has write access to.  
We didn't check if there's a buffer overflow possible when the talkback  
application reads in the file.  
  
3. Solution  
  
Disable talkback. You may do this my executing the following commands  
(your path to netscape may differ):  
  
/bin/mv /opt/netscape/talkback /opt/netscape/talkback.disable  
  
/bin/chmod -R 600 /opt/netscape/talkback  
  
Netscape responded to this vulnerability that the current version  
does not install the talkback application. You may install the new  
version 4.51 from Netscape which also fixes some other security  
vulnerabilities. However, if you update from a 4.5 installation, ensure  
that you execute the lines above.  
  
______________________________________________________________________________  
  
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______________________________________________________________________________  
  
If you want to report *NEW* security bugs in the SuSE Linux Distribution  
please send an email to [email protected] or call our support line.  
You may use pgp with the public key below to ensure confidentiality.  
______________________________________________________________________________  
  
This information is provided freely to everyone interested and may  
be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way.  
  
Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID  
pub 2048/3D25D3D9 1999/03/06 SuSE Security Team <[email protected]>  
  
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`