[comp.unix.internals] getting vendors to fix security bugs

jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) (02/21/91)

In article <123462@uunet.UU.NET> rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>Has anyone done any real measurements?  Has anyone actually
>successfully exploited this bug (of course I mean under test
>conditions, on your own machine, where you have root access anyway),
>or do we all just parrot this mantra: suid scripts are insecure.

I've tried measuring it and this is what I've found -

	* the window is bigger on more heavily loaded systems.
	* anyone can heavily load a system.
	* you can fake it using "nice".

Regarding the first point, on a lightly loaded system I had trouble
exploiting the bug.  But when I made the system crawl, I hit the
hole the first or second time around almost every time.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                             UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832                           Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org
"I've never written a device driver, but I have written a device driver manual"
                -- Robert Hartman, IDE Corp.