Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation
From: Tavis Ormandy <taviso () gentoo org>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:19:01 +0000
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 03:26:12AM -0800, neeko () feelingsinister net wrote:
Hello everyone. Doesn't the included text from the advisory really make it sound more like a problem with their system for managing games?
Hello, this is accurate.
It doesn't point out any flaw in nethack in general, just behavior that's unexpected/unwanted/uncontrollable in their system.
There is no flaw in nethack that we're aware of, this is an interaction between nethack and the policy used for managing games on gentoo that results in a security problem.
Are any other distributions/platforms vulnerable to a problem in nethack like this? Sounds like it'd be big news, considering the install base of these games.
Unlikely, gentoo uses a non-standard method of installing games, that is very unlikely to be used elsewhere.
If this problem is on their end, are other games/applications able to trigger it? They've essentially wiped these fundamental applications (sorry) off their tree for the time being, that's pretty severe.
Yes, Gentoo does not use the standard setgid system for games that store system-wide high scores, save games, etc, and as a result anyone can manipulate the high score tables or save games. Nethack was simply not designed to work this way and does not expect users to be able to modify it's state data arbitrarily, and as a result makes assumptions about the format of the files that may not hold true on Gentoo. We have decided to temporarily revoke these packages while these issues are resolved. Thanks, Tavis. -- ------------------------------------- taviso () sdf lonestar org | finger me for my pgp key. -------------------------------------------------------
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Current thread:
- [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation Sune Kloppenborg Jeppesen (Mar 23)
- Re: [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation neeko (Mar 24)
- Re: [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation Chris Gianelloni (Mar 24)
- Re: [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation Tavis Ormandy (Mar 24)
- Re: [ GLSA 200603-23 ] NetHack, Slash'EM, Falcon's Eye: Local privilege escalation neeko (Mar 24)