acroread in Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1.2 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files related to SSL certificate handling.

Updated acroread packages that fix various security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Extras, 4 Extras, and 5 Supplementary.

This update has been rated as having critical security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Adobe Acrobat Reader allows users to view and print documents in Portable Document Format (PDF).

An input validation flaw was discovered in a JavaScript engine used by Acrobat Reader. A malicious PDF file could cause Acrobat Reader to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code as the user running Acrobat Reader. (CVE-2008-2641)

An insecure temporary file usage issue was discovered in the Acrobat Reader 'acroread' startup script. A local attacker could potentially overwrite arbitrary files that were writable by the user running Acrobat Reader, if the victim ran 'acroread' with certain command line arguments. (CVE-2008-0883)

All acroread users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, that contain Acrobat Reader version 8.1.2 Security Update 1, and are not vulnerable to these issues.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200803-26 (Adobe Acrobat Reader: Insecure temporary file creation)

    SUSE reported that the 'acroread' wrapper script does not create     temporary files in a secure manner when handling SSL certificates     (CVE-2008-0883).
  Impact :

    A local attacker could exploit this vulnerability to overwrite     arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1.2 contained a /tmp race in its 'acroread' wrapper script in the SSL certificate handling. (CVE-2008-0883)

Furthermore it contained several duplicated copies of system libraries, which have been removed for this update to make sure they are up-to-date security wise by using the system provided ones.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
40724	RHEL 3 / 4 / 5 : acroread (RHSA-2008:0641)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	critical
31613	GLSA-200803-26 : Adobe Acrobat Reader: Insecure temporary file creation	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	low
31297	SuSE 10 Security Update : acroread (ZYPP Patch Number 5042)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	low
31296	openSUSE 10 Security Update : acroread (acroread-5041)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	low

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2008-0883

medium

Tenable Plugins

critical

low

low

low