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Groups > linux.debian.devel > #100988

Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack

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On 2021-08-12 12:23, Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside wrote:
> Now if people start doing stuff they don't master than it's not
> privilege escalation but much more something like another manifestation
> of human stupidity. And this, there won't be a number of article
> sufficient to make people change.
[...]
> This is only a article made to get people onto a website and see
> publicity or whatever goal the author set. There's nothing genuine in 
> there.

I think it's less about human stupidity than about all the knowledge you 
need to acquire (and retain) to securely administer a system. It is not 
easy. The concern expressed here is pretty much common knowledge among 
sysadmins of ye olde times. Of course you can abuse this, and yes it got 
easier recently. The boundary that sudo provides is very blurry, hard to 
understand and full of footguns. People need to come up with better 
boundaries - or in this case they might already exist. Basically you 
need to be able to validate the request and execute it in a secure 
environment. At basically every shared environment people come up with 
some way to allow package installation, but it's not easy to find the 
right instructions on how to do this properly on Debian[1]. I'm not 
aware of a well-trotten path for maintaining a system where users do not 
need root. Throw in some reluctance to deal with "newfangled things" (to 
establish new, maybe controversial boundaries) and you end up with every 
one fighting for themselves.

Now of course there's value in people having this knowledge and 
companies should recognize this value. But from communication and 
awareness we learn, no?

Kind regards
Philipp Kern

[1] E.g. thinking of https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/

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Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Timothy M Butterworth <timothy.m.butterworth@gmail.com> - 2021-08-12 05:40 +0200
  Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Brian Thompson <brian@hashvault.io> - 2021-08-12 06:00 +0200
    Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 07:50 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Brian Thompson <brian@hashvault.io> - 2021-08-12 08:20 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 08:30 +0200
          Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 15:00 +0200
  Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 07:40 +0200
    Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Vincent Bernat <bernat@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 08:40 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 08:40 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Vincent Bernat <bernat@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 09:00 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Ansgar <ansgar@43-1.org> - 2021-08-12 10:40 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Vincent Bernat <bernat@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 11:20 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 11:20 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack David Kalnischkies <david@kalnischkies.de> - 2021-08-12 13:50 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Kyle Edwards <kyle.edwards@kitware.com> - 2021-08-12 14:40 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 14:50 +0200
  Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net> - 2021-08-12 07:40 +0200
    Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 08:20 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Brian Thompson <brian@hashvault.io> - 2021-08-12 08:30 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Andrey Rahmatullin <wrar@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 08:40 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside <debian@polynamaude.com> - 2021-08-12 12:30 +0200
          Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 13:50 +0200
            Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de> - 2021-08-12 18:00 +0200
              Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 20:10 +0200
                Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2021-08-12 21:10 +0200
    Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Brian Thompson <brian@hashvault.io> - 2021-08-12 08:20 +0200
      Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2021-08-12 15:20 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2021-08-12 18:10 +0200
        Re: Debian package manager privilege escalation attack Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> - 2021-08-16 16:50 +0200

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