FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

gnupg -- false positive signature verification

Affected packages
gnupg < 1.4.2.1

Details

VuXML ID 63fe4189-9f97-11da-ac32-0001020eed82
Discovery 2006-02-15
Entry 2006-02-17

Werner Koch reports:

The Gentoo project identified a security related bug in GnuPG. When using any current version of GnuPG for unattended signature verification (e.g. by scripts and mail programs), false positive signature verification of detached signatures may occur.

This problem affects the tool *gpgv*, as well as using "gpg --verify" to imitate gpgv, if only the exit code of the process is used to decide whether a detached signature is valid. This is a plausible mode of operation for gpgv.

If, as suggested, the --status-fd generated output is used to decide whether a signature is valid, no problem exists. In particular applications making use of the GPGME library[2] are not affected.

References

CVE Name CVE-2006-0455
Message 87u0b1xdru.fsf@wheatstone.g10code.de