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utopyand

Member

Registered: 2012-09-05

Posts: 33

Xinput big problem

According to this page it's damn simple to get keystrokes from X even from non root account, and someone wrote a program to fast decrypt the keystroke sequences. Maybe a workaround should be to stop running xinput from non root users. What do you think about it?

Edit: the Wirenet trojan is probably using this "feature" to keylog strokes, but thinking, may a chmod that removes read and execute permission for group and others from the /usr/bin/xinput executable mitigate this security hole?

Last edited by utopyand (2012-09-14 08:09:39)

utopyand

Member

Registered: 2012-09-05

Posts: 33

Re: Xinput big problem

I give a

chmod 700 /usr/bin/xinput

hope doesn't harm my system (but i lsed the previous permissions on a file, just for...)

Last edited by utopyand (2012-09-14 08:18:01)

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Xinput big problem

chmod would only be helpful if xinput were previously e.g. suid root. But it ain't!

Malicious apps can just copy what xinput does.

Edit: Here's a good Ubuntu summary bug.

The freedesktop bug says:

We already have an XSECURITY extension (and have had for years) which allows you to specify policies such as these in a SecurityPolicy file.

So that's something to check out...

Last edited by brebs (2012-09-14 10:23:46)