source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/78/info makebootdisk creates the file /tmp/return insecurely and follows symbolic links. An attacker can create a symbolic link from /tmp/return to any file and wait for root to run the program. This will clober the target file. The file created has permissions -rw-r--r--. $ ln -s /tmp/return /etc/passwd < wait for root to run makebootdisk >