Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: mac trojan in-the-wild
From: Jay Sulzberger <jays () panix com>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 23:30:55 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu> wrote:
--On November 1, 2007 10:14:50 PM -0400 Jay Sulzberger <jays () panix com> wrote:On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu> wrote:--On November 1, 2007 6:31:39 PM -0400 "Adam St. Onge" <adamst.onge () gmail com> wrote:So if i put a picture of a naked girl on a website and said to see more you must open a terminal and enter "rm -rf". Would we consider this a trojan...or just stupidity?I would consider it stupidity to think that that is comparable to a trojan. Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)I think, under the standard Unix system of permissions, this is a Trojan. Under the standard Unix system of permissions, every application running in my home directory can issue an 'rm -rf /home/me' and, without proper near in time backup, cause me much annoyance. The defect lies in the system of permissions. There exist systems of rolling off-machine backups and minimum privilege permissions systems, but they are not yet standard.Perhaps you don't understand what a trojan is. Its purpose is to take control of a machine to use it for purposes other than those to which its owner would put it and without the owners knowledge or permission. Destroying the machine is contrary to the design and purpose of a trojan. Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
If today, common usage of the word "trojan" in this context requires that the system continue to operate without alerting the legitimate user that the system has been compromised, then yes, my use of the word was wrong. But the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing) suggests that the "Do 'rm -rf .' to see the pretty picture." Trojan satisfies the definition of Trojan: <blockquote from="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing)"> < ... /> In the context of computing and software, a Trojan horse, often rendered without capitalization or simply as trojan, is a software which purports to do a certain type of action, but in fact, performs another. < ... /> Types of Trojan horse payloads Trojan horse payloads are almost always designed to do various harmful things, but can also be harmless. They are broken down in classification based on how they breach and damage systems. The nine main types of Trojan horse payloads are: * Remote Access. * Email Sending * Data Destruction < ... /> </blockquote> The thing I call a "Trojan", and you do not, meets the first condition of the quote. And it seems to me to have a payload which commits "Data Destruction". If I have used the word in a way tending to confusion, I apologize to all full-disclosurists. oo--JS.
Senior Information Security Analyst The University of Texas at Dallas http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/
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Current thread:
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild, (continued)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Alex Eckelberry (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild nnp (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Dude VanWinkle (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild nnp (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Dude VanWinkle (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Alex Eckelberry (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Adam St. Onge (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Paul Schmehl (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Jay Sulzberger (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Paul Schmehl (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Steven Adair (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Jay Sulzberger (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Jay Sulzberger (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Nick FitzGerald (Nov 01)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Dude VanWinkle (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild J. Oquendo (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Dude VanWinkle (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild reepex (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Simon Smith (Nov 02)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Dude VanWinkle (Nov 05)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Paul Schmehl (Nov 05)
- Re: mac trojan in-the-wild Roger A. Grimes (Nov 01)