Re: dangerous to leave root logged in?

From: c0ldbyte (c0ldbyte_at_comp.unix.admin)
Date: 03/30/05 

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:41:32 GMT

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2005-03-30, Shane (aka froggy) <spamspamuber.l33t.god@spamgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But if he has four
>> xterms open, one of which is a root shell, he might accidentally get the
>> focus into the wrong one.
>>
>
>>
>> --keith
> I am constantly guilty of this
> I have multiple xterms open some with root logged in
> and the number of times I have executed commands as root when I meant to
> do this as a user is to the point you would have thought I have learnt my
> lesson by now
> (usually I wince for an hour or so then go right back to doing it)
>

Vulnerability ?: How about one program becomes vulnerable and there are
say a few rxvt's on your desktop that the user is su - rooted and that
program that is vulnerable has the ability to modify the acting buffer
of those rxvt's and send commands right to the terminal for execution.
In that case would you really like to leave a su - rooted terminal open
or even a tty open ?. I wouldnt but then again I make sure to take other
precautions as well. I know this is a little far fetched idea but other
far fetched ideas have allready been realized and noones to tell what
will come in the future.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD)
Comment: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xF7DF979F
Comment: Fingerprint = D1DC 0AA4 1C4E EAD4 24EB 7E77 B261 50BA F7DF 979F

iD8DBQFCSjwMsmFQuvffl58RAjAHAJ94JK8fPc9jKe8qfOHfEznLSHiXyQCdGeQx
EtJCUqVqEsdf8CwJcZxeWVs=
=ujrz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- 

-- 
( When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson 1998 )

Relevant Pages