Re: /dev/{km,m}em worries
H Morrow Long (long-morrow@cs.yale.edu)
Tue, 17 May 1994 11:13:39 -0400
Rick Tait <rickt@gnu.ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>What exactly are the problems with having /dev/mem and /dev/kmem readable
>by other? Is there any way in which our systems can be exploited by
>this? I recently noticed that one of our (two) servers had a
>different perm on the abovementioned files. Cf:
You (or someone else more malevolent) could read the address space of
processes looking for passwords stored in memory or other interesting
information (ie. a fishing expedition).
A more focused effort would be one of the legendary "clist peekers"
(programs to target for reading the data structures used by the Unix
terminal interfaces - ttys - called 'clists') so that the characters
being typed by users could be read as they were being entered. Fun!
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H. Morrow Long, Mgr of Dev., Yale Univ., Comp Sci Dept, 011 AKW, New Haven, CT
06520-8285, VOICE: (203)-432-{1248,1254} FAX: (203)-432-0593