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Re: Sudo: local root compromise with krb5 enabled


From: Kyle Wheeler <kyle-bugtraq () memoryhole net>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:00:55 -0600

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On Monday, June 11 at 06:52 PM, quoth Ken Raeburn:
But sudo has a curious bug: it *tries* to do the second step, but 
if that step fails because no local service keys are known, it lets 
the user become root anyway, because the (potentially fake) 
Kerberos server said so.  For example, on a host without a "keytab" 
file:

In some MIT applications there was a conscious choice to that 
effect.  The MIT library's interface for verifying credentials has a 
flag that can be set to indicate whether it should return success or 
failure for this specific case.  (Though personally, I think the 
default should be the more paranoid one, it would be an incompatible 
break from previous versions.)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding here, but so what? This sounds like the 
equivalent of this:

     My program respects the $ALLOW_ROOT_COMPROMISE environment 
     variable. You may think root compromises are bad, and that the
     environment variable is ludicrous, and I agree (that "feature" was
     added before I took over), but if I removed it then that would be
     an incompatible break from previous versions.

Just because older programs allowed it doesn't make it sacrosanct.

~Kyle
- -- 
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Behold, a 
glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" Yet 
wisdom is justified by her deeds.
                                                       -- Matthew 11:19
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