Perl: rmtree and DBI tmpfile vulnerabilities — GLSA 200501-38

The Perl DBI library and File::Path::rmtree function are vulnerable to symlink attacks.

Affected packages

Package 	dev-perl/DBI on all architectures
Affected versions 	<= 1.38
Unaffected versions 	revision >= 1.37-r1
>= 1.38-r1
Package 	dev-lang/perl on all architectures
Affected versions 	<= 5.8.6-r3
Unaffected versions 	>= 5.8.6-r4
revision >= 5.8.5-r5
revision >= 5.8.4-r4
revision >= 5.8.2-r4

Background

Perl is a cross platform programming language. The DBI is the standard database interface module for Perl.

Description

Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena discovered that the DBI library creates temporary files in an insecure, predictable way (CAN-2005-0077). Paul Szabo found out that "File::Path::rmtree" is vulnerable to various race conditions (CAN-2004-0452, CAN-2005-0448).

Impact

A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory that point to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When the DBI library or File::Path::rmtree is executed, this could be used to overwrite or remove files with the rights of the user calling these functions.

Workaround

There are no known workarounds at this time.

Resolution

All Perl users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose dev-lang/perl

All DBI library users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose dev-perl/DBI

References

    CAN-2004-0452
    CAN-2005-0077
    CAN-2005-0448