Bug 1069134 - gnome by default run software on media
Summary: gnome by default run software on media
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gsettings-desktop-schemas
Version: 20
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
urgent
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Matthias Clasen
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2014-02-24 10:01 UTC by Aleksandar Kostadinov
Modified: 2015-06-29 19:03 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2015-06-29 19:03:42 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
screenshot from default config (458.50 KB, image/png)
2014-02-24 10:04 UTC, Aleksandar Kostadinov
no flags Details
A gsettings-desktop-schemas patch to change the default autorun behavior for software (2.74 KB, patch)
2014-04-07 19:48 UTC, Luke Macken
no flags Details | Diff

Description Aleksandar Kostadinov 2014-02-24 10:01:41 UTC
Description of problem:
On default gnome Fedora 20 installation it is configured to run software on new inserted media by default. This is a high risk security broken configuration IMO. This has been fixed in windows long ago.

Attaching screenshot.

Comment 1 Aleksandar Kostadinov 2014-02-24 10:04:11 UTC
Created attachment 866917 [details]
screenshot from default config

Comment 2 Murray McAllister 2014-02-25 05:47:02 UTC
Hi Aleksandar,

Thanks for reporting this. When you insert media does it not ask "...contains software intented to be automcatically started. Would you like to run it?"? It just ran automatically for you?

Testing here it asked, which is in line with the " You will always be prompted for a confirmation before software is run." documentation on:

https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/3.5/files-autorun.html.en

Thanks,

--
Murray McAllister / Red Hat Security Response Team

Comment 3 Aleksandar Kostadinov 2014-02-25 07:58:01 UTC
Good question. How do I prepare a media that will be recognized as software?

Comment 4 Murray McAllister 2014-02-26 01:05:10 UTC
Someone else actually tested this for me ;) Today on RHEL 6 I just added a ".autorun" file to a normal USB drive, which contained the following

#!/bin/bash
gedit

When I inserted the drive it said it had software that wanted to run automatically. When I clicked "yes" through the prompts gedit appeared.

Comment 5 Aleksandar Kostadinov 2014-02-26 08:54:43 UTC
That's partially good IMO. But I'm wondering if suggesting to user to run software is a good idea actually. If one looks at windows, they try to avoid running unsigned or software with unknown signature. In the same way, IMO it's better to not make it too easy for user to run some random software on removable media.

Comment 6 Murray McAllister 2014-02-27 11:40:13 UTC
Right, the message/what is going to happen may not be clear to users and they may unintentionally run something they were not expecting. As the documentation states you will be asked before auto running (and this appears to work as documented), we would not treat the current situation as a security flaw (unless you disagree, I am not familiar with the auto run situation on Windows platforms).

I will remove the Security group and you can open the bug up when you are ready.

Let me know if I have missed something.

Comment 7 Aleksandar Kostadinov 2014-02-27 11:46:59 UTC
Thank you Murray, I agree with your analysis. I would suggest that we do not enable auto-running software by default (even with the simple confirmation dialog that we have now) from removable media until we have some mechanism to identify trusted vs untrusted sources.

Regards

Comment 8 Luke Macken 2014-04-07 19:48:09 UTC
Created attachment 883758 [details]
A gsettings-desktop-schemas patch to change the default autorun behavior for software

The GNOME docs to claim that it will always ask, but the default configuration of "Run Software" does not convey that and is inconsistent with all of the others which 'Ask what to do'.

Attached is a patch that changes the default in the schema back to 'Ask what to do'. After applying this patch I then had to run this command to reset the value to the new default: `gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.media-handling autorun-x-content-start-app`.

Comment 9 Fedora End Of Life 2015-05-29 11:02:14 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 20 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 20. It is Fedora's policy to close all
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Comment 10 Fedora End Of Life 2015-06-29 19:03:42 UTC
Fedora 20 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-06-23. Fedora 20 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
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