From: Fredrik Tolf <fredrik@dolda2000.cjb.net>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: PTY DOS vulnerability?
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 16:18:36 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <200306301613.11711.fredrik@dolda2000.cjb.net> (raw)
Has someone considered PTYs as a possible attack vector for DOS
attacks? Correct me if I'm wrong, but cannot someone just open
all available PTYs on a console-less server and make everyone
unable to log in?
I mean, what if eg. apache is hacked, and the first thing the
attacker does is to tie up all PTYs, so that noone can log in to
correct the situation while the attacker can go about his
business? Then the only possible solution would be to reboot the
server, which might very well not be desirable.
If you want proof of concept code, look at
http://www.dolda2000.cjb.net/~fredrik/ptmx.c
I successfully ran this on one of my servers which effectively
disabled anyone from logging in via SSH.
Shouldn't PTYs be a per-user resource limit?
Someone must have thought of this before me, right? How am I
wrong?
Fredrik Tolf
next reply other threads:[~2003-06-30 14:04 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2003-06-30 14:18 Fredrik Tolf [this message]
2003-06-30 17:55 ` Alan Cox
2003-06-30 21:31 ` Fredrik Tolf
2003-06-30 21:36 ` Alan Cox
2003-07-01 12:15 ` Jesse Pollard
2003-07-01 13:41 ` Timothy Miller
2003-07-01 6:22 ` Oleg Drokin
2003-07-01 11:57 ` Jesse Pollard
2003-07-01 19:53 ` Helge Hafting
2003-07-02 6:42 ` Paul Rolland
2003-07-03 1:14 ` Jesse Pollard
2003-07-03 1:52 ` H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-08 23:11 Clayton Weaver
2003-07-09 10:08 ` Svein Ove Aas
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