Emacs 21 and XEmacs automatically load and execute .flc (fast lock) files that are associated with other files that are edited within Emacs, which allows user-assisted attackers to execute arbitrary code.

Xemacs automatically loaded fast-lock files which allowed local attackers to execute arbitrary code as the user editing the associated files. (CVE-2008-2142)

Emacs automatically loaded fast-lock files which allowed local attackers to execute arbitrary code as the user editing the associated files. (CVE-2008-2142)

A vulnerability in emacs was found where an attacker could provide a group of files containing local variable definitions and arbitrary Lisp code to be executed when one of the provided files is opened by emacs (CVE-2008-2142).

The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200902-06 (GNU Emacs, XEmacs: Multiple vulnerabilities)

    Morten Welinder reports about GNU Emacs and edit-utils in XEmacs: By     shipping a .flc accompanying a source file (.c for example) and setting     font-lock-support-mode to fast-lock-mode in the source file through     local variables, any Lisp code in the .flc file is executed without     warning (CVE-2008-2142).
    Romain Francoise reported a security risk in a feature of GNU Emacs     related to interacting with Python. The vulnerability arises because     Python, by default, prepends the current directory to the module search     path, allowing for arbitrary code execution when launched from a     specially crafted directory (CVE-2008-3949).
  Impact :

    Remote attackers could entice a user to open a specially crafted file     in GNU Emacs, possibly leading to the execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp     code or arbitrary Python code with the privileges of the user running     GNU Emacs or XEmacs.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

- Wed Jun 18 2008 Ville Skytta <ville.skytta at iki.fi> -     20070427-2 - Apply upstream security fix for     CVE-2008-2142 (#446069).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Xemacs automatically loaded fast-lock files which allowed local attackers to execute arbitrary code as the user editing the associated files (CVE-2008-2142).

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
51766	SuSE 10 Security Update : XEmacs (ZYPP Patch Number 5303)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
41503	SuSE 10 Security Update : Emacs (ZYPP Patch Number 5297)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
41212	SuSE9 Security Update : Emacs (YOU Patch Number 12157)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
37529	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : emacs (MDVSA-2008:153)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
35732	GLSA-200902-06 : GNU Emacs, XEmacs: Multiple vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	high
33237	Fedora 8 : xemacs-packages-extra-20070427-2.fc8 (2008-5504)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
33233	Fedora 9 : xemacs-packages-extra-20070427-2.fc9 (2008-5446)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
32502	SuSE 10 Security Update : XEmacs (ZYPP Patch Number 5250)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
32441	openSUSE 10 Security Update : xemacs-packages (xemacs-packages-5249)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
32440	SuSE 10 Security Update : Emacs (ZYPP Patch Number 5248)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
32439	openSUSE 10 Security Update : emacs (emacs-5247)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2008-2142

critical

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

medium

high

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium