Re: [Plug] RE: Path

["Nick R" <laktar@hotmail.com>]

Not really. If you type ls it first looks at the path statement. That's a 
security feature (in the real sense of the word, not the M$ sense) so that 
people can't do that. You'd have to type ./ls in order to fall for that trap 
& there's no reason to do that. You can try it for yourself. Just make a 
blank ls file.

       -Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org


If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, 
but
one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
       -- Peter's Evil Overlord List, 
http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html


> From: Hugh Brock <hbrock@ibm.net>
> Reply-To: plug@lists.nothinbut.net
> To: plug@lists.nothinbut.net
> Subject: Re: [Plug] RE: Path
> Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 10:20:09 -0400
>
> In general, if I'm not mistaken, you don't want much in the search path
> for the superuser, if for no other reason than that you want to get in
> the habit of typing the full path for every command you run as root
> (e.g. "/bin/ls", not just "ls").
>
> Why? If an attacker was able to gain normal-user status on your system,
> she could plant a trojan-horse "ls" (for example) in the compromised
> user's home directory that emails /etc/passwd to an address in Botswana,
> or something worse. Then when you go to that directory as root and type
> "ls", which you will probably do at some point, the trojan horse ls gets
> executed with root privileges. If, on the other hand, you type /bin/ls,
> nothing happens other than that you wonder "hey, what's this 'ls' doing
> in joe user's home directory?"
>
> (See 'Practical Unix and Internet Security' for more... best $40 I ever
> spent...)
>
> --Hugh
>
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