(RHSA-2005:103) perl security update

Perl is a high-level programming language commonly used for system
administration utilities and Web programming.

Kevin Finisterre discovered a stack based buffer overflow flaw in sperl,
the Perl setuid wrapper. A local user could create a sperl executable
script with a carefully created path name, overflowing the buffer and
leading to root privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and
Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2005-0156 to
this issue.

Kevin Finisterre discovered a flaw in sperl which can cause debugging
information to be logged to arbitrary files. By setting an environment
variable, a local user could cause sperl to create, as root, files with
arbitrary filenames, or append the debugging information to existing files.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has
assigned the name CAN-2005-0155 to this issue.

An unsafe file permission bug was discovered in the rmtree() function in
the File::Path module. The rmtree() function removes files and directories
in an insecure manner, which could allow a local user to read or delete
arbitrary files. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project
(cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0452 to this issue.

Users of Perl are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which
contains backported patches to correct these issues.