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Re: fingerd problems

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Mitchell)
Fri May 17 11:23:37 1996

Date:         Fri, 17 May 1996 02:41:47 -0400
Reply-To: Bugtraq List <BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG>
From: Brian Mitchell <brian@saturn.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list BUGTRAQ <BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG>
In-Reply-To:  <Pine.LNX.3.91.960516165951.28231E-100000@dilbert.redhat.com>

On Thu, 16 May 1996, Elliot Lee wrote:

> > [ list of ways to list all the users on a system using fingerd ]
>
> Another vulnerability of many finger daemons is their ability to support
> 'chain' fingers. If they are passed a "username" in the form of
> 'user@ahost.net' the finger daemon will repeat the finger, effectively
> hiding the tracks of anyone trying to scope out your system security.
>
> For a demonstration, 'telnet prep.ai.mit.edu 79' and type
> '[yourname]@[yourhost]'. If you have TCP wrappers installed, you will
> notice that the finger connection comes from prep.ai.mit.edu, not [yourhost].
>

Some www servers also include the 'finger' cgi program, which can be used
in much the same way, ie:

lynx http://www.cgis.net/cgi-bin/finger\?user@host

Brian Mitchell                  brian@saturn.net

"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell"
- H. Truman

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