tex-common could be made to run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted file.
Mathias Svensson discovered that the tex-common package contains an insecure shell_escape_commands configuration item. If a user or automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted TeX file, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary code with user privileges.
4 April 2011
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
tex-common could be made to run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted file.
Mathias Svensson discovered that the tex-common package contains an insecure shell_escape_commands configuration item. If a user or automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted TeX file, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary code with user privileges.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
Vulmon