From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Description of problem: when an administrator uses a GUI tool from the menu from a non-root user's window, the system remembers that the root password was correctly entered and allows that user to use ANY root tool for a whild. This becomes a security problem if the user from whom the tool was called is not a trusted user (all sorts of exploits possible). Usertool requires a 'remember this password' box so that I can disable the persistence of authority presumption. I would suggest that the box start UNchecked by default. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): usermode-1.67-2 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Use any tool that is linked to userhelper 2. Walk away and pray that the user doesn't realize that (s)he is now effectively root. 3. Actual Results: User now has root prives Expected Results: User is not trusted Additional info: This is vaguely related to bug #98391 workaround ( su -c "rm -rf /var/run/sudo/$USER" ) still leaves a window of vulnerability. su -c "rm -rf /var/run/sudo/$USER ; true > /var/run/sudo/$USER && ls -ld /var/run/sudo/$USER" works a bit better. (the `ls` is to verify that you did not lose to a race condition)
Moving to an RFE; I think this is a good idea too.
I think that it it is also a security issue. As an admin, I was not initially aware that supplying a password to run (eg) ethereal, would result in persistent permission for that user to do things like create a secondary root user. (Not everybody Rs the FM.) Think of it as INsecurity through obscurity. Tricking a not-fully-informed admin into running a user-helper application to do something seemingly innocuous (without logging out and logging back in as himself) now becomes a powerful root exploit. If nothing else, there should be a note on the window warning admins that the root permission grant will linger. If you must mark it as an Enhanscement, I request that you at least upgrade it to serious.
Red Hat apologizes that these issues have not been resolved yet. We do want to make sure that no important bugs slip through the cracks. Red Hat Linux 7.3 and Red Hat Linux 9 are no longer supported by Red Hat, Inc. They are maintained by the Fedora Legacy project (http://www.fedoralegacy.org/) for security updates only. If this is a security issue, please reassign to the 'Fedora Legacy' product in bugzilla. Please note that Legacy security update support for these products will stop on December 31st, 2006. If this is not a security issue, please check if this issue is still present in a current Fedora Core release. If so, please change the product and version to match, and check the box indicating that the requested information has been provided. If you are currently still running Red Hat Linux 7.3 or 9, please note that Fedora Legacy security update support for these products will stop on December 31st, 2006. You are strongly advised to upgrade to a current Fedora Core release or Red Hat Enterprise Linux or comparable. Some information on which option may be right for you is available at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/migrate/redhatlinux/. Any bug still open against Red Hat Linux 7.3 or 9 at the end of 2006 will be closed 'CANTFIX'. Again, if this bug still exists in a current release, or is a security issue, please change the product as necessary. We thank you for your help, and apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point.
Red Hat Linux 7.3 and Red Hat Linux 9 are no longer supported by Red Hat, Inc. f you are currently still running Red Hat Linux 7.3 or 9, you are strongly advised to upgrade to a current Fedora Core release or Red Hat Enterprise Linux or comparable. Some information on which option may be right for you is available at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/migrate/redhatlinux/. Closing as CANTFIX.