Re: Large security hole in SGI IRIX 5.2

[glaze () rclsgi eng ohio-state edu (Larry Glaze)]

>   bugtraq is a FULL disclosure list.
Yeah, and I believe in full disclosure but not AS SOON AS the hole is 
discovered.  If there is an easy fix then I think people should have at least
a couple of days to fix it.  Besides, it is my perogative whether or not I want
to even give an exploit or not.  (yeah, I know, discuss this stuff on the other
mailing list...)  Enough of that subject.

>   The hole comes from the authentication being at the _dirview_ (an SGI 
> directory browser) level. You can only pull up 'permissions' when the menu 
> item is not grayed out. If you run 'permissions' by hand, you eliminate 
> that check and have root access to the permissions on an file.
>   Turning the setuid/setgid bit off is a perfectly sensible solution to 
> this problem, and it is beyond me why that wasn't the default permissions.
I didn't have time to figure out -where- the problem is coming from, just that
it existed.  Besides, all those people who think they know exactly how to
exploit the hole well...I haven't seen anyone give the exact way to do it
(what happened to full disclosure? Hmm...) and the couple I have seen do not
work.  I could pull up the 'permissions' menu on *any* file or directory on
our system.  Also, running it by hand doesn't give you any more or less
priveledges than what you have by running it through the menu.  And if another
hole like this exists (as someone mentioned in another message) then why the
hell hasn't anyone been notified about it!  Sheesh, so much for *any* 
disclosure!

Larry
-- 
Larry Glaze                             |       "...Life's a bummer..." 
The Ohio State University               |               --Smashing Pumpkins
glaze.6 () osu edu                              |
http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/~glaze |All opinions are my own, blah, blah...