Nicolas Boullis found a nasty security problem in the wmtv (a dockable video4linux TV player for windowmaker) package as distributed in Debian GNU/Linux 2.2. wmtv can optionally run a command if you double-click on the TV window. This command can be specified using the -e command line option. However, since wmtv is installed suid root, this command was also run as root, which gives local users a very simple way to get root access. This has been fixed in version 0.6.5-2potato1 by dropping root privileges before executing the command. We recommend that you upgrade your wmtv package immediately.
wmtv can optionally run a command if you double-click on the TV window. This command can be specified using the -e command line option. However, since wmtv is installed suid root, this command was also run as root, which gives local users a very simple way to get root access.
This has been fixed in version 0.6.5-2potato1 by dropping root privileges before executing the command. We recommend that you upgrade your wmtv package immediately.
MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory.