A security flaw was found in the way logwatch, a log file analysis program, pre-processed log files, containing certain special characters in their names. A remote attacker could use this flaw to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the privileged system user (root) by creating a specially-crafted log file, subsequently analyzed by the logwatch script.

Upstream bug report: [1] http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3184223&groupid=312875&atid=1316824

Related patch: [2] http://logwatch.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/logwatch?view=revision&revision=26

Other references: [3] http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?threadname=4D604843.7040303%40mblmail.net&forumname=logwatch-devel