Raphael Geissert discovered that uscan, a part of devscripts, did not properly sanitize its input when processing pathnames. If uscan processed a crafted filename for a file on a remote server, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user invoking the program.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
8 October 2009
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Raphael Geissert discovered that uscan, a part of devscripts, did not properly sanitize its input when processing pathnames. If uscan processed a crafted filename for a file on a remote server, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user invoking the program.
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.