sharutils security update

Updated packages for sharutils which fix potential privilege escalation
using the uudecode utility are available.

The sharutils package contains a set of tools for encoding and decoding
packages of files in binary or text format.

The uudecode utility creates an output file without checking to see if
it was about to write to a symlink or a pipe. If a user uses uudecode to
extract data into open shared directories, such as /tmp, this vulnerability
could be used by a local attacker to overwrite files or lead to privilege
escalation.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has
assigned the name CAN-2002-0178 to this issue.

Users are advised to upgrade to these errata sharutils packages which
contain a version of uudecode that has been patched to check for an
existing pipe or symlink output file.

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filenames]

where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the
desired RPMs.

Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2002-0178
http://www.aerasec.de/security/index.html?id=ae-200204-033〈=en

fifo, file, handling, output, pipe, symlink, uudecode