Bug#360157: balsa: exposes plaintext of gpg signed and encrypted
mails on stdout
Manuel Tobias Schiller
mala at hinterbergen.de
Thu Mar 30 23:22:27 UTC 2006
Package: balsa
Version: 2.3.0-2sarge1
Severity: normal
When viewing a message in balsa which was signed using gpg, balsa
will print the verified message to stdout. That is bad: if the message
was also encrypted, because it will expose the decrypted plaintext on
stdout.
This is a security issue because when you start balsa from the gnome
menu, the plaintext of the message can be found verbatim in
~/.xsession-errors (!).
The problem any security concious persion should have with this
behaviour is that the message plaintext is written to disk where it
may be recovered easily days or even weeks after the decrypted message
has been wiped from memory. The messages plaintext should ideally only
be located in system memory. It's bad enough that it might end up in the
swap partition on some systems, but finding it on the file system is only
inviting people to try to steal it...
Below, I have included a log of the messages printed by balsa to the
console (balsa was started from a terminal window in that case) to
demonstrate the problem (names and e-mail addresses have been crossed
out for privacy reasons):
--- begin of log ---
mala at ws02:~ > balsa
** Message: init gpgme version 1.0.2
** Message: loading icon balsa_compose (stock id stock_mail-compose)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_reply (stock id stock_mail-reply)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_reply_group (stock id
stock_mail-reply-to-all)
art_render_invoke: no image source given
** Message: loaded with size 24
art_render_invoke: no image source given
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_send (stock id stock_mail-send)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_receive (stock id stock_mail-receive)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_send_receive (stock id
stock_mail-send-receive)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_forward (stock id stock_mail-forward)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_identity (stock id stock_contact)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_continue (stock id stock_mail)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_postpone (stock id balsa-postpone)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_reply_all (stock id balsa-reply-all)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_next_part (stock id balsa-next-part)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_previous_part (stock id
balsa-previous-part)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_marked_all (stock id balsa-mark-all)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_attachment (stock id stock_attach)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_next (stock id balsa-next)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_previous (stock id balsa-previous)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_next_unread (stock id balsa-next-unread)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_next_flagged (stock id
balsa-next-flagged)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_sign (stock id balsa-signature-unknown)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_sign_good (stock id balsa-signature-good)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_sign_trust (stock id
balsa-signature-notrust)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_sign_bad (stock id balsa-signature-bad)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_encr (stock id balsa-encrypted)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_book_red (stock id stock_book_red)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_book_yellow (stock id stock_book_yellow)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_book_green (stock id stock_book_green)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_book_blue (stock id stock_book_blue)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_book_open (stock id stock_book_open)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_show_headers (stock id stock_view-fields)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_show_preview (stock id balsa-preview)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_marked_new (stock id balsa-marked-new)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_trash_empty (stock id balsa-trash-empty)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_gpg_sign (stock id balsa-sign)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_gpg_encrypt (stock id balsa-encrypt)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_gpg_recheck (stock id balsa-crypt-check)
** Message: loaded with size 24
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_in (stock id stock_inbox)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_out (stock id stock_outbox)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_draft (stock id balsa-mbox-draft)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_sent (stock id balsa-mbox-sent)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_tray_full (stock id
balsa-mbox-tray-full)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_tray_empty (stock id
balsa-mbox-tray-empty)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_dir_open (stock id
gnome-fs-directory-accept)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_mbox_dir_closed (stock id
gnome-fs-directory)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_info_replied (stock id
stock_mail-replied)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_info_new (stock id stock_mail-unread)
** Message: loaded with size 16
** Message: loading icon balsa_info_flagged (stock id
stock_mail-flag-for-followup)
** Message: loaded with size 16
opening Inbox..
done, msgcnt=0
(balsa:6010): gmime-WARNING **: Invalid or incomplete type: text:
defaulting to text/plain
(balsa:6010): gmime-WARNING **: Invalid or incomplete type: text:
defaulting to text/plain
(balsa:6010): gmime-WARNING **: Invalid or incomplete type: text:
defaulting to text/plain
(balsa:6010): gmime-WARNING **: Invalid or incomplete type: text:
defaulting to text/plain
attempted to verify:
----- BEGIN SIGNED PART -----
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; DelSp=Yes; Format=Flowed
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Hallo XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
ein Buch gibt es noch, das mu=C3=9F ich aber aufteilen, das kommt gegen
=20
Abend. =C3=9Cbrigens, wo bekommt man eigentlich Deinen
PGP-Schl=C3=BCssel s=
elbst =20
her? Auf den mir bekannten Keyservern ist er nicht zu finden.
Gru=C3=9F
XXXXXXXXXXX
P.S. Meine Schl=C3=BCssel kann man sich von einem PGP-Keyserver
runterladen=
; =20
viele e-mail Clients bieten das sogar automatisch an.
Fingerabdr=C3=BCcke =20
k=C3=B6nnen wir ja dann morgen vergleichen. (Key-IDs sind XXXXXXXXXX und
=20
XXXXXXXXXXXX)
On 29/03/06 13:27:55, XXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> Hallo XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!
>=20
> Danke f=C3=BCr die B=C3=BCcher! War aber knapp, mit der
> Mailgr=C3=B6=C3=
=9Fe bei Deinem
> Router ;-).
>=20
> Gr=C3=BCtze gab's schon zu Mittag, daher viele Gr=C3=BC=C3=9Fe
> Martin
>=20
>=20
> --
> OpenPGP XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
----- END SIGNED PART -----
mala at ws02:~ >
--- end of log ---
Please write if you need further information. I'd be happy to help.
Manuel
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.32
Locale: LANG=en_GB.ISO-8859-1, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.ISO-8859-1 (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Versions of packages balsa depends on:
ii libaspell15 0.60.2+20050121-2 The GNU Aspell spell-checker runti
ii libbonobo2-0 2.8.1-2 Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii libbonoboui2-0 2.8.1-2 The Bonobo UI library
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libesmtp5 1.0.3-1 LibESMTP SMTP client library
ii libgconf2-4 2.8.1-6 GNOME configuration database syste
ii libglib2.0-0 2.6.4-1 The GLib library of C routines
ii libgmime2.1 2.1.14-1 MIME library, unstable version
ii libgnome2-0 2.8.1-2 The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii libgnomeprint2.2-0 2.8.2-1.2 The GNOME 2.2 print architecture -
ii libgnomeprintui2.2-0 2.8.2-2 GNOME 2.2 print architecture User
ii libgnomeui-0 2.8.1-3 The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii libgnomevfs2-0 2.8.4-4 The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii libgpgme11 1.0.2-1 GPGME - GnuPG Made Easy
ii libgtk2.0-0 2.6.4-3.1 The GTK+ graphical user interface
ii libgtkhtml3.2-11 3.2.5-1 HTML rendering/editing library - r
ii libkrb53 1.3.6-2sarge2 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii libldap2 2.1.30-8 OpenLDAP libraries
ii liborbit2 1:2.12.2-1 libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii libpango1.0-0 1.8.1-1 Layout and rendering of internatio
ii libpcre3 4.5-1.2sarge1 Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expressi
ii libpopt0 1.7-5 lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii libsqlite0 2.8.16-1 SQLite shared library
ii libssl0.9.7 0.9.7e-3sarge1 SSL shared libraries
-- no debconf information
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