[ GLSA 200505-15 ] gdb: Multiple vulnerabilities

[GLSA]

Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Title: gdb: Multiple vulnerabilities (GLSA 200505-15)
Severity: normal
Exploitable: local
Date: May 20, 2005
Updated: May 22, 2006
Bug(s): #88398, #91398, #91654
ID: 200505-15

Synopsis

Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in the GNU debugger, potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code.

Background

gdb is the GNU project's debugger, facilitating the analysis and debugging of applications. The BFD library provides a uniform method of accessing a variety of object file formats.

Affected Packages

Package: sys-devel/gdb
Vulnerable: < 6.3-r3
Unaffected: >= 6.3-r3
Architectures: All supported architectures


Description

Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo Linux Security Audit Team discovered an integer overflow in the BFD library, resulting in a heap overflow. A review also showed that by default, gdb insecurely sources initialisation files from the working directory.

Impact

Successful exploitation would result in the execution of arbitrary code on loading a specially crafted object file or the execution of arbitrary commands.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All gdb users should upgrade to the latest stable version: