Nano vulnerable to symlink attack (Patch available)
19 Dec. 2000
Summary
Nano is a free pico-like editor. An attacker can cause a user using nano to overwrite arbitrary system files by symlinking to those files and forcing nano to overwrite them.
The problem that was previously reported for joe also occurs with other editors. When nano unexpectedly dies it tries a warning message to a new file with a predictable name (the name of the file being edited with ".save" appended). Unfortunately that file was not created safely which made nano vulnerable to a symlink attack.
This enables local attackers to force other users to overwrite arbitrary system files, and might lead to root compromise if this attack is performed against root.
Solution:
This has been fixed in version 0.9.23-1 (except for PowerPC, which has version 0.9.23-1.1).
wget url
will fetch the file for you dpkg -i file.deb
will install the referenced file.
Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 alias potato
Potato was released for alpha, arm, i386, m68k, PowerPC and Sparc.
