Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: wu-ftpd info.


From: smb () research att com (smb () research att com)
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 94 12:01:40 EDT


         What are the dangers posed by someone gaining root access, as
         through a trojaned ftpd, in a _chrooted_ environment, assuming
         that the environment gets chrooted before there's any chance
         of compromise?  Granted, you don't want strangers enabled to
         wreak havoc with your ftp heirarchy (and planting _more_
         trojans), but what kind of threats can be posed to the rest of
         the system from such a toehold?

The answer comes from observing that chroot() provides the process
with a different file name space, but it does not isolate it from
other attributes of the machine.  For example, the machine's network
identity remainds the same.  How about this:

        ypcat passwd

This will get the real passwd file -- with all that implies.

The chroot area also shares the same bdevsw space; thus, root can do

        mknod ~ftp/sd0a b 7 0

or equivalent.



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