VTE, as used by default in gnome-terminal terminal emulator 2.2 and as an option in gnome-terminal 2.0, allows attackers to modify the window title via a certain character escape sequence and then insert it back to the command line in the user's terminal, e.g. when the user views a file containing the malicious sequence, which could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2003-0070
• http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/vulnwatch/2003-q1/0093.html
• http://marc.info/?l=bugtraq&m=104612710031920&w=2
• http://seclists.org/lists/bugtraq/2003/Mar/0010.html
• http://www.iss.net/security_center/static/11414.php
• http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2003-053.html