The telnet daemon contained in the netkit-telnet-ssl_0.16.3-1 package in the 'stable' (potato) distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is vulnerable to an exploitable overflow in its output handling. The original bug was found by <scut@nb.in-berlin.de>, and announced to bugtraq on Jul 18 2001. At that time, netkit-telnet versions after 0.14 were not believed to be vulnerable. On Aug 10 2001, zen-parse posted an advisory based on the same problem, for all netkit-telnet versions below 0.17. More details can be found on SecurityFocus. As Debian uses the 'telnetd' user to run in.telnetd, this is not a remote root compromise on Debian systems; the 'telnetd' user can be compromised. We strongly advise you update your netkit-telnet-ssl packages to the versions listed below.
On Aug 10 2001, zen-parse posted an advisory based on the same problem, for all netkit-telnet versions below 0.17.
More details can be found on SecurityFocus. As Debian uses the 'telnetd' user to run in.telnetd, this is not a remote root compromise on Debian systems; the 'telnetd' user can be compromised.
We strongly advise you update your netkit-telnet-ssl packages to the versions listed below.
MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory.
MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the revised advisory.