Re: SECURITY: Red Hat Linux 5.1 linuxconf bug (fwd)

[ewt () REDHAT COM (Erik Troan)]

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Chris Evans wrote:

> Most importantly, please note that there are probably plenty of other
> security holes in linuxconf apart from this one.

This is a really key point. Linuxconf is quite large, and (IMHO) much too
large to be properly audited. Linuxconf needs to use some sort of setuid
helper program and a reexec mechanism if it ever hopes to be secure.

Yes, Red Hat new this before we shipped it. Yes, Red Hat knew we needed
to turn of the setuid bit. Yes, Red Hat screwed up :-(

Erik

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