A new security update has been released for Gentoo Linux - Festival: Privilege elevation. Here the announcement:

Gentoo Linux Security Advisory GLSA 200707-10
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http://security.gentoo.org/
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Severity: High
Title: Festival: Privilege elevation
Date: July 25, 2007
Bugs: #170477
ID: 200707-10

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Synopsis
========

A vulnerability has been discovered in Festival, allowing for a local
privilege escalation.

Background
==========

Festival is a text-to-speech accessibility program.

Affected packages
=================

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Package / Vulnerable / Unaffected
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1 app-accessibility/festival < 1.95_beta-r4 >= 1.95_beta-r4

Description
===========

Konstantine Shirow reported a vulnerability in default Gentoo
configurations of Festival. The daemon is configured to run with root
privileges and to listen on localhost, without requiring a password.

Impact
======

A local attacker could gain root privileges by connecting to the daemon
and execute arbitrary commands.

Workaround
==========

Set a password in the configuration file /etc/festival/server.scm by
adding the line: (set! server_passwd password)

Resolution
==========

All Festival users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-accessibility/festival-1.95_beta-r4"

Availability
============

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at
the Gentoo Security Website:

http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200707-10.xml

Concerns?
=========

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the
confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost
importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to
security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at
http://bugs.gentoo.org.

License
=======

Copyright 2007 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text
belongs to its owner(s).

The contents of this document are licensed under the
Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5