Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers)
From: Michal Zalewski <lcamtuf () coredump cx>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 09:06:34 -0800
"Using su to execute commands as an untrusted user from an interactive shell may allow the untrusted user to escalate privileges to the user running the shell."
If you have the ability to execute code on that terminal before the user executes su, it is also possible to simply never allow the real su application to run until you've already captured the credentials and escalated to root. For example, you could define an alias or change PATH in the shell; ptrace the shell or use LD_PRELOAD to change its semantics; or simply never return to the shell at all, and simply fake all the subsequent interactions with it (not particularly hard to do this in a convincing way). This is why I find the standard security mantra of "disable root logins and use su / sudo" to be extremely silly. In general, very few OSes are designed to handle such scenarios gracefully. /mz _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
Current thread:
- TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) halfdog (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Michal Zalewski (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Benji (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Michal Zalewski (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Benji (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Benji (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Jerry Bell (Nov 12)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Michal Zalewski (Nov 11)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Benji (Nov 10)
- Re: TTY handling when executing code in lower-privileged context (su, virt containers) Michal Zalewski (Nov 10)