This is the mail archive of the
gdb@sources.redhat.com
mailing list for the GDB project.
gdb and suid binaries - security?
- From: "Kris Warkentin" <kewarken at qnx dot com>
- To: <gdb at sources dot redhat dot com>
- Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 10:26:58 -0500
- Subject: gdb and suid binaries - security?
Is it true that if gdb is debugging a suid binary then any calls they make
from the debugger are executed as that user? Couldn't one then execute
arbitrary instructions as root if you debugged something like su? Or even
worse, just call setuid(0) and let the program run to completion.
Oddly enough I've noticed that this actually fails on both FreeBSD and Linux
but it almost seems to be some mechanism outside of gdb. Does anyone know
how this works?
cheers,
Kris