Linux-Mandrake Security Update Advisory: xchat update

Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:45:37 -0600
From: Linux Mandrake Security Team
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Subject: MDKSA-2000:039-1 – xchat update

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                Linux-Mandrake Security Update Advisory

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Package name:           xchat
Date:                   August 28th, 2000
Original Advisory Date: August 24th, 2000
Advisory ID:            MDKSA-2000:039-1

Affected versions:      7.0, 7.1

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Problem Description:

XChat 1.3.9 and later allow users to right-click on a URL
appearing in an IRC discussion and select the “Open in Browser”
option. To open the URL in a browser, XChat passes the command to
/bin/sh. This allows a malicious URL the ability to execute
arbitrary shell commands as the user that is running XChat. This
update changes the functionality of XChat to bypass the shell and
execute the browser directly. Thanks go to Red Hat for providing
the patch.

Update:

XChat 1.2.1 is vulnerable as well, so an update for 7.0 is now
available.

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Please verify these md5 checksums of the updates prior to
upgrading to ensure the integrity of the downloaded package. You
can do this by running the md5sum program on the downloaded package
by using “md5sum package.rpm”.

Linux-Mandrake 7.0:
ebf0d4a0d236453f63a797ea20f0758b
7.0/RPMS/xchat-1.4.1-4mdk.i586.rpm
d695396fb97a55c6c7e2cdbb22079c00
7.0/SRPMS/xchat-1.4.1-4mdk.src.rpm

Linux-Mandrake 7.1:
ebf0d4a0d236453f63a797ea20f0758b
7.1/RPMS/xchat-1.4.1-4mdk.i586.rpm
d695396fb97a55c6c7e2cdbb22079c00
7.1/SRPMS/xchat-1.4.1-4mdk.src.rpm

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To upgrade automatically, use « MandrakeUpdate
».

If you want to upgrade manually, download the updated package
from one of our FTP server mirrors and uprade with “rpm -Uvh
package_name”.

You can download the updates directly from:

ftp://ftp.linux.tucows.com/pub/distributions/Mandrake/Mandrake/updates

ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrake/updates

Or try one of the other mirrors listed at:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3.

Updated packages are available in the “updates/[ver]/RPMS/”
directory. For example, if you are looking for an updated RPM
package for Linux-Mandrake 7.1, look for it in “updates/7.1/RPMS/”.
Updated source RPMs are available as well, but you generally do not
need to download them.

Please be aware that sometimes it takes the mirrors a few hours
to update, so if you want an immediate upgrade, please use one of
the two above-listed mirrors.

You can view other security advisories for Linux-Mandrake
at:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/fupdates.php3

If you want to report vulnerabilities, please contact

security@linux-mandrake.com

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Linux-Mandrake has two security-related mailing list services that
anyone can subscribe to:

security-announce@linux-mandrake.com

Linux-Mandrake’s security announcements mailing list. Only
announcements are sent to this list and it is read-only.

security-discuss@linux-mandrake.com

Linux-Mandrake’s security discussion mailing list. This list is
open to anyone to discuss Linux-Mandrake security specifically and
Linux security in general.

To subscribe to either list, send a message to sympa@linux-mandrake.com with
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To get more information on either list, send a message to
sympa@linux-mandrake.com with
“info [listname]” in the body of the message.

Optionally, you can use the web interface to subscribe to or
unsubscribe from either list:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/flists.php3#security