[11146] in bugtraq
Re: Troff dangerous.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob Beck)
Tue Jul 27 16:08:50 1999
Message-Id: <199907262309.RAA15323@bofh.ucs.ualberta.ca>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:09:14 -0600
Reply-To: Bob Beck <beck@BOFH.UCS.UALBERTA.CA>
From: Bob Beck <beck@BOFH.UCS.UALBERTA.CA>
X-To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:27:44 PDT."
<199907252027.NAA29991@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>
> (1) Root installs the malicious roff source unknowingly.
>
> (2) During the process of building/installing the program,
XXXXX
> at which point the trojan
> horse does it dirty work.
s/XXXXX/configure runs some stuff/
s/XXXXX/Make runs some stuff/
s/XXXXX/shell runs som stuff/
s/XXXXX/some random evil program runs/
Yeah, a troff macro is a little obtuse for the younger
generation, but so what? How many people who run those nifty gnu
autoconf twiddlies do you think are checking beforehand what they are
doing as root? At the risk of further flogging the sticky spot on the
road that used to be a horse, this really shouldn't be a shocker to
anyone on this list. Most anything you run as root can be made to own
you by whoever can change it before you run it.
-Bob
