Follow @Openwall on Twitter for new release announcements and other news
[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <fd19615e-b049-ee54-9d34-3c89bda717b4@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2020 14:12:49 -0500
From: "Demi M. Obenour" <demiobenour@...il.com>
To: "Vladimir D. Seleznev" <vseleznv@...linux.org>,
 oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: The importance of mutual authentication: Local
 Privilege Escalation in X11

On 11/10/20 1:43 PM, Vladimir D. Seleznev wrote:
>>> This contravenes the ability to run X11 client from another user. The
>>> idea is that X11 server allows any clients with right credentials
>>> regardless of theirs processes UID or GID to connect to the server.
>> Indeed it does, and I mention cryptographic authentication mechanisms
>> below.  Instead of /tmp, /run/X11 would work just as well.  It is
>> the mutual authentication that matters.
> Do I understand you correctly: you propose to forbid running X11 clients
> which processes belong to another users? In that case it is a bad idea:
> I would like to run untrusted clients with special UIDs. Or if I
> understand you wrongly, please explain how client of other user can
> connect to the socket placed in /run/user/$UID with these strict access
> permissions 0700?

If you aren’t using the X Security Extension or the X Access
Control Extension, then X clients aren’t effectively isolated from
each other.  Therefore, connecting untrusted X clients to the desktop
session is a bad idea.

Under my proposal, you would still be able to run an X server with
cryptographic authentication, but it would be more secure than it
is today.  Depending on the display manager, you might need to run
your own X server.

Sincerely,

Demi

Download attachment "OpenPGP_0xB288B55FFF9C22C1.asc" of type "application/pgp-keys" (3987 bytes)

Download attachment "OpenPGP_signature" of type "application/pgp-signature" (834 bytes)

Powered by blists - more mailing lists

Please check out the Open Source Software Security Wiki, which is counterpart to this mailing list.

Confused about mailing lists and their use? Read about mailing lists on Wikipedia and check out these guidelines on proper formatting of your messages.