Executive brief
Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection is a suite of puzzle games available across multiple platforms. A malformed game description or save file can trigger a buffer overflow, allowing an attacker who convinces a user to load a specially crafted file to crash the application or potentially execute arbitrary code.
Technical details
This vulnerability is a buffer overflow occurring during game loading when processing malformed game descriptions or save files, specifically triggered via the "M" command. The root cause involves insufficient bounds checking when parsing input data. The attack requires local user interaction—an attacker must social-engineer a victim into loading a malicious game file or description. Exploitation can lead to denial of service (application crash) or arbitrary code execution depending on the specific buffer layout and mitigations present. The vulnerability was fixed in upstream version 20230122.806ae71 and patched in Debian sgt-puzzles versions 20230122.806ae71-1 and 20191231.79a5378-3+deb11u1.
Affected products
- Simon Tatham Portable Puzzle Collection before 20230122.806ae71
Timeline
- 2023-01-15: disclosed
- 2023-01-22: patched