OSEC

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Re: Apache 2.x leaked descriptors

From: Joe Orton (jortonredhat.com)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2003 - 06:51:45 CST


I think you can be more inventive on what a malicious script author can
if they can run arbitrary code from a CGI script, under the Apache
model: here are some things I can up with:

- using ptrace() on an httpd child: now you can get the httpd child to
run arbitrary code, so "fd leaks" from child to CGI script are really
irrelevant. (This is an old trick: nCipher used this as a demo of how to
extract in-server SSL private keys using a CGI script)

- send signals to the server children: SIGSTOP will make a quick'n'easy
DoS.

I'm sure there are more. The bottom line is that you must trust CGI
script authors with the priviledges of the user which httpd runs as.

Regards,

joe