Dominik George discovered that logwatch did not properly sanitize log file names that were passed to the shell as part of a command. If a remote attacker were able to generate specially crafted filenames (for example, via Samba logging), they could execute arbitrary code with root privileges.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
1 March 2011
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Dominik George discovered that logwatch did not properly sanitize log file names that were passed to the shell as part of a command. If a remote attacker were able to generate specially crafted filenames (for example, via Samba logging), they could execute arbitrary code with root 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