From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 25 00:25:22 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA26347 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 25 Jun 1996 00:25:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.gaianet.net (root@mercury.gaianet.net [206.171.98.26]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA26339; Tue, 25 Jun 1996 00:25:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from vince@localhost) by mercury.gaianet.net (8.7.5/8.6.12) id AAA06126; Tue, 25 Jun 1996 00:25:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 00:25:02 -0700 (PDT) From: -Vince- To: Gary Palmer cc: Mark Murray , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, security@FreeBSD.ORG, Chad Shackley , jbhunt Subject: Re: I need help on this one - please help me track this guy down! In-Reply-To: <29209.835685912@palmer.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Gary Palmer wrote: > -Vince- wrote in message ID > : > > Hmmm, doesn't everyone have . as their path since all . does is allow > > someone to run stuff from the current directory... > > No, everyone does NOT have `.' in their paths! I most certainly don't, > as I know that it's ALL to easy to have someone break your system > security that way. Imagine if you are looking into something as root, > and have `.' in your path. You go into someone elses directory, and do > a `ls'. All they need is a wrapper program called `ls' in that dir > which copies /bin/sh to some directory, chowns it to root, then sets > the setuid bit, and THEN exec's ls with the arguments given, an BANG, > there goes your system security. > > See the problem? It's a bit of a pain if you are doing s/w > development, but it's more than repaid in security ... It's why we put > up with the common complaint from newbies about not being able to run > programs in their current directory, as `.' isn't in root's path by > default when we ship the system. Hmmm, I see people don't have it at the beginning of their path but they do for the end even on CERFNet when they talk about security, all their defaults have . at the end.. Vince