Teemu Salmela discovered that tar still handled the deprecated GNUTYPE_NAMES record type. This record type could be used to create symlinks that would be followed while unpacking a tar archive. If a user or an automated system were tricked into unpacking a specially crafted tar file, arbitrary files could be overwritten with user privileges.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
27 November 2006
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Teemu Salmela discovered that tar still handled the deprecated GNUTYPE_NAMES record type. This record type could be used to create symlinks that would be followed while unpacking a tar archive. If a user or an automated system were tricked into unpacking a specially crafted tar file, arbitrary files could be overwritten 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 upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.
Vulmon