A KDE Security Advisory explains:

Kate / Kwrite create a file backup before saving a modified file. These backup files are created with default permissions, even if the original file had more strict permissions set.

Depending on the system security settings, backup files might be readable by other users. Kate / Kwrite are network transparent applications and therefore this vulnerability might not be restricted to local users.

ge 3.2.0 lt 3.4.1

ge 9.3 lt 9.3_2

Problem description

A fixed-size buffer is used in the decompression of data streams. Due to erronous analysis performed when zlib was written, this buffer, which was belived to be sufficiently large to handle any possible input stream, is in fact too small.

Impact

A carefully constructed compressed data stream can result in zlib overwriting some data structures. This may cause applications to halt, resulting in a denial of service; or it may result in an attacker gaining elevated privileges.

< 9.3_1

ge 5.4 lt 5.4_6

ge 5.3 lt 5.3_20