(RHSA-2003:246) wu-ftpd security update

The wu-ftpd package contains the Washington University FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) server daemon. FTP is a method of transferring files between
machines.

An off-by-one bug has been discovered in versions of wu-ftpd up to and
including 2.6.2. On a vulnerable system, a remote attacker would be able
to exploit this bug to gain root privileges.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux contains a version of wu-ftpd that is affected by
this bug, although it is believed that this issue will not be remotely
exploitable due to compiler padding of the buffer that is the target of the
overflow. However, Red Hat still advises that all users of wu-ftpd upgrade
to these erratum packages, which contain a security patch.

Red Hat would like to thank Wojciech Purczynski and Janusz Niewiadomski of
ISEC Security Research for their responsible disclosure of this issue.