OT: security of make as authorized_keys command

[John Summerfield]

Dave Burns wrote:
>

> 
> What if a bad guy does get my key? Then I see three possible problems:
> 
> 1) somehow use make's -F switch in ssh command to change Makefiles?
> 2) stack overflow of make or ssh?
> 3) Somehow put extra command after make target using ';' or something?
> 
> And obviously the bad guy can invoke any of the targets in my
> makefile, but I've made them pretty innocuous.
> 
> So, should I seriously worry about any of these potential problems?
> Any other holes I haven't thought of?
> 
> The motivation for all this is some cron jobs I want to run, obviously
> calls for a passwordless ssh key, but I want to put some limits on it.


I'm completely confused as to the whys and wherefores of what you're 
trying to do, but for the ungodly to do bad they'd
1. Need your credentials
2. Need to know your system's address
3. Need to be able to connect to it - iptables is really good for this
4. Need to know your account name
5. Need to know what it does and how to do it
6. Need a means to profit. The value (in their eyes) comes into this.

The last is a little difficult to estimate, conceivably someone might 
have an idea of how to profit that you can't imagine, maybe just for 
bragging rights in some peer group.

Finally, you need to be able to estimate the harm they could do if they 
did gain access. On my systems, they could send email, but IRC bots 
would not work, and they could not port-scan others (though testing ssh 
would work).





-- 

Cheers
John

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