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Message-ID: <20171031123745.GA10823@openwall.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2017 13:37:45 +0100
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Fw: Security risk of vim swap files
On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 01:23:52PM +0100, Hanno B??ck wrote:
> I think vim should change the behavior of swap files:
> 1. they should be stored in /tmp by default
> 2. they should have secure permissions (tmp file security is
> a tricky thing and needs careful consideration to avoid symlink attacks
> and the like, but there are dedicated functions for this like mkstemp).
> 3. Ideally they also shouldn't leak currently edited filenames (e.g.
> they shouldn't be called /tmp/.test.txt.swp, but more something
> like /tmp/.vim_swap.123782173)
Out of these, I think only 2 should be done: the files should be mode
0600 or 0400 even if the original file's permissions and/or the umask
are more relaxed.
1 and 3 go against intended use for these files - recovery of an edit in
progress if the editor or the entire system crashes (and comes back up
e.g. after a power-cycle). /tmp contents might not survive a reboot,
and randomized filenames would prevent vim itself from detecting the
problem and offering recovery, which it does now.
Alexander
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