Ludwig Nussel discovered that kdm managed the ~/.dmrc file in an insecure way. By performing a symlink attack, a local user could exploit this to read arbitrary files on the system, like private files of other users, /etc/shadow, and similarly sensitive data.
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
15 June 2006
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Ludwig Nussel discovered that kdm managed the ~/.dmrc file in an insecure way. By performing a symlink attack, a local user could exploit this to read arbitrary files on the system, like private files of other users, /etc/shadow, and similarly sensitive data.
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