Bugtraq mailing list archives
XDM Insecurity revisited
From: jtb () THEO2 PHYSIK UNI-STUTTGART DE (Jochen Bauer)
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 12:26:20 +0200
On Wed, 26 Nov 1997 Eric Augustus (augustus () stic net) posted a message on BUGTRAQ about the fact, that the default Xaccess file allows XDMCP connections from any host. As you know, this can be used to get a login screen on any host and therefore get around access control mechanisms like tcpwrapper and root login restriction to the console. However, this warning seemed to have little effect as (at least) Digital Unix 4.0E, SuSE Linux 6.1 and Red Hat Linux 6.0 are still (1.5 years later) shipped with this default Xaccess file. It is somehow ironic that e.g. SuSE now uses tcpwrappers by default on most TCP services in it's distribution and describes the use of tcpwrappers in the manual in a special chapter about security, but fails to close (or even mention) that way to circumvent login restrictions. By the way, If you think that using the cryptographically secured remote management channels with access limited to authorized hosts on your AltaVista Firewall under Digital Unix is the only way of doing remote administration of the firewall, then you should take a close look at your Xaccess file ;-) -- Jochen Bauer ************************************************************ *Network Security Team * *Computer Center of the University of Stuttgart * *Germany * * * *Email: jtb () theo2 physik uni-stuttgart de * * jochen.bauer () rus uni-stuttgart de * * * *PGP Public Key: * * http://www.theo2.physik.uni-stuttgart.de/jtb.html * ************************************************************
Current thread:
- XDM Insecurity revisited Jochen Bauer (Aug 18)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Martin Schulze (Aug 19)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Thomas Leitner (Aug 19)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Alan Cox (Aug 19)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Jeremy Buhler (Aug 21)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Dave Plonka (Aug 19)
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Michael Herrmann (Aug 23)
- Announcement [new mailing list] route () RESENTMENT INFONEXUS COM (Aug 19)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: XDM Insecurity revisited Martin K. Petersen (Aug 19)