Questions tagged [root]
The root tag has no usage guidance.
1
vote
1answer
82 views
Do I need to worry about vulnerabilities that require administrative privileges to exploit?
I am currently evaluating the impact that the recent NUC Firmware Advisory has on our machines.
What confuses me is that fact that those vulerabilities are scored with
a high risk score, but
require(...
0
votes
0answers
66 views
Government Root CA installed on computer/browser and Man-In-The-Middle [duplicate]
Some countries already have their government Root CA installed on computer/browsers. Is it possible for these countries to read Google etc. mails by using Man-In-The-Middle or similar technique(s)?
32
votes
2answers
4k views
Ability To Change Root User Password (Vulnerability?)
I am studying for my RHCSA exam, and one of the topics is the ability to "change a forgotten root user password." This is an official exam objective and even has official Redhat documentation.
How ...
5
votes
1answer
95 views
How can a bad process obtain root by waiting for a user to run a command as sudo?
A comment on this answer states:
The whole linux desktop provides very little protection against bad processes running as the user. A bad process could just watch the keyboard input and wait for ...
0
votes
1answer
56 views
Employer Self Signed Root Certificate
I don't have knowledge into programming/cybersecurity so I stumbled upon this site and figured I'd ask a quick question. I worked for about 3 years at company and left as of last week. I don't know ...
1
vote
1answer
83 views
Using SUID program to avoid having entries in sudoers
Well, I've done a lot of reading and documentation around possible exploitation of sudoers files and SUID programs, but don't have a deep enough knowledge to pick up the wisest possible solution for ...
0
votes
0answers
36 views
How do I verify that a user on a remote system has root access?
Let's say an anonymous user somewhere on the internet claims that he or she is the admin/root user of the system/server behind some public IP Address.
I was thinking, what can a root user do that a ...
0
votes
2answers
71 views
Is the root certificate issued from one Certificate Authority is same for all the requesting organisation?
Let me please explain the question a bit more through an example:
There are lots of companies who have their certificates signed by Verisign (or any CA). I understand that Verisign signs these certs ...
2
votes
1answer
44 views
What is the impact of leaving disabled root key on AWS instance?
I have a user which, when asked to create an IAM root user account, left the now disabled root key on the instance.
When asked to remove the root key, he said it's disabled now so what's the ...
0
votes
0answers
26 views
Using the same private key for both WSL-Ansible and Putty (or WSL-OpenSSH for that matter)
I use Windows 10 home on my PC and SSHing to up to 5 Linux IaaS machines with either Debian/ArchLinux as server environments.
I use Ansible to orchestrate and continuously integrate and continuously ...
0
votes
3answers
2k views
Leveraging curl to spawn a shell
So I'm doing a HTB challenge where I have leveraged the targets box use of reading a file that sets a url for curl in order to transverse down the directory and display the root flag in a report that ...
0
votes
1answer
28 views
Does it make sense to check command integrity after running it as root?
The other day Dave was hurrying for his project at night. He wanted to install homebrew on his Mac. He typed "homebrew" in Safari search bar, pressed return, and clicked into the first link. He copied ...
64
votes
4answers
12k views
Are most Linux systems that allow non-root users to execute code straightforwardly rootable?
long story short if you can execute code on a box it is usually straightforward to get root
(quote source)
The immediate implication of this quote (if it's accurate) is that if you're running a ...
35
votes
8answers
11k views
Why do companies not give root access to employees on their desktop machines? [duplicate]
Why do companies typically not give their employees root access to their desktop machines that are only used by a single employee?
If what I can do on my machine poses a threat to the rest of the ...
1
vote
2answers
106 views
Is an unencrypted log in android's storage considered insecure?
I'm currently checking the logs an Android app creates. There, I found an interesting entry: In android's
/data/data/app.being.checked/cache/ok_http_cache_dir
There are quite a lot of files and ...
-4
votes
1answer
111 views
Reason behind Chrome not running in root user in kali Linux?
Why does Google Chrome not run as root user by default in Kali Linux? Is it a security issue?
1
vote
2answers
107 views
Add main user account to docker group
I recently installed ubuntu on my home system. As I am going to mainly use it for machine learning research, I tried to set up a python environment. I tried doing this with docker to make things ...
2
votes
1answer
559 views
How to add a custom CA to androids trusted root system folder
As of Android 7.0 no custom certificate will be used by android apps. App developers need to specifically write codes and change app settings to follow a custom CA.
But this is difficult while ...
1
vote
2answers
82 views
An application started by the root user has root privileges?
I'm starting node.js on my server. I have to start the node.js HTTP server as root, because it will listen on the port 80. Once i start the node.js on port 80, if a person is able to execute some code ...
3
votes
2answers
207 views
Where to get all the root CA certs?
Is there a common place where we can download all the root CA certs and get frequent updates for changes? This is one place where we can find the CAs, but we need to keep on checking for the updates. ...
2
votes
2answers
143 views
Can root user have access to MySQL data?
Having MySQL using auth_socket as default authentication mechanism for the root user scares me, so I change it to password authentication with rigid controls on password quality and documentation.
If ...
-1
votes
2answers
94 views
Is it dangerous to turn on internet connection under su -c?
If someone would turn on internet connection using command su -c "/sbin/ifup ppp1" would it put system at risk (how bad) ?
0
votes
1answer
311 views
Why do some root and intermediate certificate authorities have “G2” or “G3” in the name? [duplicate]
I have noticed that some root and intermediate CAs have things like "G2" or "G3" in the name.
For example, take the certificate for amazon.com. The intermediate CA is DigiCert Global CA G2, and the ...
0
votes
1answer
60 views
Possible Security threats and mitigations while accessing `/root` through any browser?
I asked this question on Unix Stackexchange. How to access /root directory from a browser?
I got an answer (in a comment by @dsstorefile) that It can be accessed either way :
By running chmod 0777 ...
1
vote
0answers
81 views
SUID not executing as root [duplicate]
I am trying to learn about SUIDs and have run into bit of a stumbling block - I have a ubuntu 16.04 system. I have set a few default binaries such as vim, find et al. to have SUID permissions as ...
4
votes
1answer
108 views
How to properly protect /home with separate user accounts on Linux
A great quote from this InfoSec stackExchange thread.
The way to prevent malicious code from damaging files in your home
directory is to not run it using your account. Create a separate_user
...
2
votes
2answers
719 views
Privilege Escalation Wordpress
I have access to a Wordpress blog and want to read the server's /root directory that belongs to the user "root" and not "www-data". I also know his password, but I can't open an interactive shell to ...
8
votes
3answers
365 views
How do I create an invisible and persistent user on linux?
For my software security class we are required to hack into a server created by our professor. I have hacked into the server, and have the password for the root user.
Now that I am root, I would ...
0
votes
2answers
60 views
Prevent program from switching to user without password
I created a user with useradd without specifying a password. When I try to
sudo -u theuser echo hi
I am being prompted for my admin password (unless specified otherwise in the sudoers file, of ...
99
votes
13answers
14k views
Why is root security enforced but $HOME typically unprotected?
Coming from the comments in this question Why is it bad to log in as root?:
The sudo mechanics is in use so non-administrative tools "cannot harm your system." I agree that it would be pretty bad if ...
0
votes
1answer
104 views
What could be done with web shell on unrooted android device?
Is it possible to control unrooted android device through a web shell?
I've been trying to execute various php shells but the whole response is error statements like this
php is installed and all ...
7
votes
3answers
407 views
Difference between root login and passwordless sudo
Cloud images of some popular operating systems do not let the user to log in as root, yet they use a very standard user name (for example ec2-user, ubuntu) and allow these users to use passwordless ...
2
votes
1answer
100 views
Downsides to SSHing from a root account to a less privileged account on another server
I know that SSHing to a server as root (i.e. so that you are logged in as root after connecting) has its downsides. My question is sort of the opposite. If I connect from a server as root to a ...
8
votes
1answer
9k views
Docker runs container processes as root - should I be worried?
I am running a (QNAP) NAS with Docker functionality ("containerstation"). I thought it would be a lot safer to install apps via containers instead of apps from the store (or 3rd party stores).
Many ...
2
votes
1answer
53 views
Enterprise software in which later versions have security vulnerability
Scenario : You are presented with a CVN which details that a piece of common software that you run with root privilege has a vulnerability that allows a non-privileged user to create or overwrite any ...
0
votes
1answer
292 views
What the risks of rooting your Android? [duplicate]
Besides your warranty getting voided, what potential security risks are there with rooting your Android?
4
votes
2answers
1k views
Preventing users from bypassing root/jailbreak detection measures
A pentest was made to our mobile app (Android and iOS version) and we received feedback stating that jailbreak/root detection was ineffective because it was relatively easy to reverse engineer the ...
2
votes
1answer
101 views
sudo -u <user> <cmd> vs sudoedit
I have read on the internet that you have to use sudoedit instead of sudo vim. I understand why this is and should be used so you can't just edit root-user files.
However I would like to manage a ...
0
votes
3answers
754 views
Root access without password
I know it's strongly advised against enabling root access on server but as cracking SSH keys is almost impossible can I enable root access just by using ssh keys and be safe?
My OS is Ubuntu 16.04.
...
1
vote
0answers
33 views
Are unique root certificates required to have different subjects?
I've heard that in the X.509 world, the certificate subject attribute is supposed to be unique... and that if someone has multiple trusted roots with the same subject (but still different in other ...
2
votes
1answer
170 views
No password root accounts of an entire laboratory!
2 days ago some of the university staff asked me about 3 computers here.
All the computers are using Ubuntu and have the exact same password on the login screen for the superuser. Let's say StackPa$$...
5
votes
1answer
6k views
Gaining root access on an Android phone exploited with MetaSploit
I have been using MetaSploit for a while (3 years), and I have just started exploiting Android.
My Android has root access, and SuperSu is configured to 'grant' all SU requests.
I have the payload ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
Is android keystore still vulnerable if root access is received?
I studied this paper - http://www.cs.kun.nl/~erikpoll/publications/AndroidSecureStorage.pdf which states that if attacker has root access to the device it's easy to use keystore keys with another (...
0
votes
1answer
73 views
Possible ways for hackers to alter kernel behaviour without root [closed]
I'm wondering is it possible to harm kernel (by injecting shared library, loadable module or something like that) without root. If yes, how hackers can achieve it?
5
votes
1answer
168 views
Harden root remote access
I'm trying to find a good method for hardening a server while allowing automated remote management via ssh (ansible).
The popular choice is login with a normal user and then use sudo, but this has ...
3
votes
1answer
265 views
how to identify all packages in a Linux distribution which requires root access?
To help me to prioritize security issues and be compliance with a patch-management policy, and to reduce the exposure to risk, I would like to have a list of all packages in
a Linux distribution (rpm ...
