Overview
A vulnerability exists in the history command of Concurrent Versions System (CVS). If exploited, this vulnerability could disclose sensitive information about files and directories on an affected system to a remote, authenticated CVS user.
Description
| Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is a source code maintenance system that is widely used by open-source software development projects. It provides a history command that displays reports on cvs commands that have been executed on files or directories in the source repository. The history command supports a -X command line switch, which is designed to allow a user to specify the name of the history file to be used. This command line switch contains an information disclosure vulnerability. When specifying a directory or filename to the -X command line switch, the error message that is returned could allow an attacker to determine the existence and accessibility of arbitrary files or directories on an affected system. | 
Impact
| A remote, authenticated CVS user could determine if arbitrary files or directories exist on an affected system and whether the CVS daemon has privileges to access them. | 
Solution
| Apply a patch or upgrade Apply the appropriate patch or upgrade as specified by your vendor. This issue has been resolved in Stable CVS Version 1.11.17 and CVS Feature Version 1.12.9. | 
| 
 
 Note that some of these workarounds will only limit the scope and impact of possible attacks. | 
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector | 
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental | 
References
Acknowledgements
This vulnerability was reported by iDefense.
This document was written by Damon Morda.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2004-0778 | 
| Severity Metric: | 12.60 | 
| Date Public: | 2004-08-16 | 
| Date First Published: | 2004-08-17 | 
| Date Last Updated: | 2004-08-19 19:53 UTC | 
| Document Revision: | 25 |