Yellow Dog Linux Security Announcement
--------------------------------------

Package:	minicom	
Issue Date: 	July 25, 2001
Priority:	high		
Advisory ID: 	YDU-20010725-3


1. 	Topic:

	Minicom has a security problem that may allow
	a malicious user to obtain uucp group or even
	root privileges.

2. 	Problem:

	
	"Minicom contains a great number of format string abuses in it's usage
	of several printf-like varargs functions.  The program was never written
	with security in mind, and as such even though many format strings bugs
	have been fixed in this release, there are many more lurking in the code.
	This release solves the security problem by disabling setgid uucp on the
	minicom binary."
	(from Red Hat security advisory)


3. 	Solution:

   	a) Updating via yup...
   	We suggest that you use the Yellow Dog Update Program (yup)
   	to keep your system up-to-date. The following command(s) will
   	automatically retrieve and install the fixed version of
   	this update onto your system:

   		yup update minicom 

   	b) Updating manually...
   	The update can also be retrieved manually from our ftp site
   	below along with the rpm command that should be used to install
   	the update.  (Please use a mirror site)

   		ftp://ftp.yellowdoglinux.com/pub/yellowdog/updates/yellowdog-2.0/ppc/RPMS/
		rpm -Fvh minicom-1.83.1-8.ppc.rpm 


4. Verification

MD5 checksum			  Package
--------------------------------  ----------------------------
b242547f27a80fba983caf172ee3726c  SRPMS/minicom-1.83.1-8.src.rpm
23fcc4fdca513ffff7a399aa8262a0cf  ppc/RPMS/minicom-1.83.1-8.ppc.rpm

If you wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with,
examine the md5sum with the following command: rpm --checksig --nogpg filename


5. Misc.

Terra Soft has setup a moderated mailing list where these security, bugfix, and package
enhancement announcements will be posted. See http://lists.yellowdoglinux.com/ for more
information.

For information regarding the usage of yup, the Yellow Dog Update Program, see 
http://http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/yup.shtml