search menu icon-carat-right cmu-wordmark

CERT Coordination Center

gnome-terminal allows arbitrary command execution when viewing files containing crafted escape sequences

Vulnerability Note VU#230561

Original Release Date: 2003-02-27 | Last Revised: 2003-02-27

Overview

gnome-terminal may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands via crafted escape sequences.

Description

gnome-terminal affords users the ability to utilize an escape sequence to "export" the title of the current window title directly to the shell command line. By viewing a maliciously crafted file in gnome-terminal, a victim may unknowingly execute shell commands (provided by the attacker).

This vulnerability was discovered by H D Moore of Digital Defense. H D has provided a paper on this topic (TERMINAL EMULATOR SECURITY ISSUES), and Red Hat has published RHSA-2003:053-10. Both of these documents provide more information about this vulnerability.

Impact

A remote attacker may be able to execute arbitrary commands on a vulnerable host.

Solution

Apply a patch.

Vendor Information

230561
 

CVSS Metrics

Group Score Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

Acknowledgements

This vulnerability was discovered by H D Moore of Digital Defense. The CERT/CC thanks both H D Moore and Red Hat for providing information upon which this document is based.

This document was written by Ian A Finlay.

Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2003-0070
Severity Metric: 4.86
Date Public: 2003-02-24
Date First Published: 2003-02-27
Date Last Updated: 2003-02-27 17:57 UTC
Document Revision: 6

Sponsored by CISA.