An arbitrary file write vulnerability was found in GNU gzip's zgrep utility. When zgrep is applied on the attacker's chosen file name (for example, a crafted file name), this can overwrite an attacker's content to an arbitrary attacker-selected file. This flaw occurs due to insufficient validation when processing filenames with two or more newlines where selected content and the target file names are embedded in crafted multi-line file names. This flaw allows a remote, low privileged attacker to force zgrep to write arbitrary files on the system.

scripts/xzgrep.in in xzgrep 5.2.x before 5.2.0, before 5.0.0 does not properly process file names containing semicolons, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by having a user run xzgrep on a crafted file name.