lynx-dev Potential security hole?

[Don Kozlowski]

Hi there...

I've just run across an announcement of a security hole in lynx. The
site that announced it doesn't appear to be offering the source patch to
fix it, and they don't appear to have an AIX binary. I can't find any
reference to it on the lynx pages, and our site is vulnerable. Have you
been notified of this bug, and if so, is there a patch that I can
download to fix it? Thanks in advance...

Here's the announcement I found on address@hidden



 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

______________________________________________________________________________

                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:  lynx-2.8.2 and older
        Date:     Thu Sep 16 21:29:15 CEST 1999
        Affected: all Linux distributions using lynx-2.8.2 and older
______________________________________________________________________________

A security hole 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

  When lynx calls external programs for protocols (e.g. telnet), the
  location is passed unchecked. This can be used to activate commandline
  parameters.
  For example, this reference  [A HREF="telnet://-n.rhosts"]click me[/A]
  would activate the tracefile options on the telnet client, with the
  result, that a .rhosts in the current directory would created or
  overwritten.

2. Impact

  Depending on the external programs called by lynx, files can be
created
  or truncated, or even remote commands being executed if e.g. ssh or
rsh
  would be configured in lynx.

3. Solution

  Updated the lynx package from our FTP server.
______________________________________________________________________________

Here are the md5 checksums of the upgrade packages, please verify these
before installing the new packages:

lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm   fd29230757f76d33e21836965822f7a6  (5.3)
lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm   2fba1f9fcf2c3ad9bbb23f0ea18acecd  (6.0)
lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.alpha.rpm  f706fa71b38721d1d0e1e69700c467a4  (AXP)
lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm   2fba1f9fcf2c3ad9bbb23f0ea18acecd  (6.1)
lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm   18f870d15016f63aa510cc5161c027c2  (6.2)
______________________________________________________________________________

You will find the update on our ftp-Server:
 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/5.3/n1/lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm
 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.1/n1/lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.alpha.rpm
 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.1/n1/lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm
 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.2/n1/lynx-2.8.3dev9-76.i386.rpm

Webpage for patches:
  http://www.suse.de/patches/index.html

or try the following web pages for a list of mirrors:
  http://www.suse.de/ftp.html
  http://www.suse.com/ftp_new.html

______________________________________________________________________________

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______________________________________________________________________________

If you want to report *NEW* security bugs in the SuSE Linux Distribution
please send an email to address@hidden 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 <address@hidden>