Re: Hourly Error Message of Unknown Provenance

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On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 01:54:21PM -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
>
> I keep asking for people to point me to the huge list
> of exploits that certainly must exist given all the
> horrors expressed about running as root.
> 
> No one has ever been able to tell me where to find it.

Running a graphical session as root violates a very basic UNIX
principal of separation of access.  Root is a special case user
because it can (using normal UNIX permissions) access everything.

Every bug that tricks a process into allowing it to get at unexpected
resources is a bug that is even worse if you're running as root.

For example, if you are using a file manager that creates thumbprint
images for pictures in the directory it is viewing, any
image-rendering exploit now can launch processes that can access
everything, not just your user's data.  

Your web browser is one of the biggest vectors of attack on your
computer.  Now you've got poorly-secured javascript with the ability
to read every file and read all process's memory.

Fortunately, we have tools like SELinux that can contain what a
service running as root can do, but if you're running your desktop
session as root, it's largely uncontained.  You're throwing much of
the security the OS provides out the window.

Windows learned this lesson too, which is why you don't log in and run
as Administrator, and you need to get prompted to raise access level.
Sure, there are plenty of people who still do it, and they get
compromised that much easier.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings@xxxxxxxxxx>
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