MGASA-2015-0122

The python-rope utility has been caught passing remotely supplied data to pickle.load(), enabling possible code-execution attacks. This can happen when the 'perform_doa' (dynamic object analysis) option is enabled, which it previously had been by default.

This update changes the default configuration to disable this option. This only mitigates the issue, as it will still be vulnerable if the option is enabled.

If 'perform_doa' is enabled, python-rope can be persuaded to open under some circumstances a network port for short moment of time, which can be used to push commands to the running process, so the process could run some commands under the privileges of the user running python-rope. Anyone who enables this option is advised to make sure the computer is protected by a firewall.