oss-sec mailing list archives

Re: request CVE id: insecure handling of DISPLAY in rxvt


From: Nico Golde <oss-security+ml () ngolde de>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 14:04:08 +0100

Hi Matthieu,
* Matthieu Herrb <matthieu.herrb () laas fr> [2008-03-05 12:54]:
Nico Golde wrote:
Steve, can I get a CVE id for the following issue in rxvt?
"If the DISPLAY environment is not set, rxvt opens an xterm on :0, which on 
some headless login-server means anyone can setup an fake X server waiting for 
someone loggin in without X forwarding to start rxvt by some mistake or by 
some program (thus without even noticing) and getting full shell access to 
that other account."
This is Debian bug 469296[0].
It should be a good idea to check other terminal emulators as well.
[0] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=469296

I don't understand how that's an issue with rxvt. If you "fix" the terminal 
emulator not to that, yo can still run rxvt -display :0 or env DISPLAY=:0 rxvt.

Sure but what's your point? It still looks different to me 
if the user is forced to enable that or if it's done in the 
background without him noticing it.

But then  I also don't understant what you mean by "setup an fake X server 
waiting for someone loggin in..."

He basically meant starting an X server on :0.

Cheers
Nico
-- 
Nico Golde - http://www.ngolde.de - nion () jabber ccc de - GPG: 0x73647CFF
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