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Date:      Tue, 15 Dec 1998 18:58:30 +0200
From:      Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>
To:        Joe Abley <jabley@clear.co.nz>
Cc:        Kevin Day <toasty@home.dragondata.com>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: modification to exec in the kernel? 
Message-ID:  <199812151658.SAA68881@greenpeace.grondar.za>
In-Reply-To: Your message of " Wed, 16 Dec 1998 05:40:35 %2B1300." <19981216054035.C27078@clear.co.nz> 
References:  <19981215120357.B11837@clear.co.nz> <199812142331.RAA17203@home.dragondata.com> <19981215124818.A22526@clear.co.nz> <199812150644.IAA67338@greenpeace.grondar.za>   <19981216054035.C27078@clear.co.nz> 

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Joe Abley wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 15, 1998 at 08:44:16AM +0200, Mark Murray wrote:
> "Just about" - so there are _some_ exploits that would require a user-supplied
> binary? So preventing execution of user-supplied binaries does give _some_
> safety benefit?

0.001%. If you can do it in C, you can do it in perl. Buffer exploits
are much easier in C and assembler, though. A cracker with time is
a dangerous beast, remember.

> I take your point, though - I was forgetting how much feature bloat there
> is in perl.
> 
> Why people can't just make do with awk is a little beyond me :)

Shellscript+awk+sed is a potent combination in the hands of an
uberhacker.

Consider the case of the virus-written-in-shellscript; when last
and how often do you run tripwire? Are you _convinced_ that you
have _never_ (both absolutes) run a user-written substitute (possibly
trojaned) replacement for a system applet?

I've hit a perl replacement for ls(1) that only gloated. Yes, I
was root.

M
--
Mark Murray
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