Mac OS X Security Issue – USB Keyboard Root Access – Mac OS X...

Advisory Title: USB Keyboard Init Crash -> Root Access
Release Date: 2003 October 31
Affected Products: Mac OS X 10.2.7 and prior (possibly 10.2.8)
Severity: Moderate
Impact: Root Access
Where: Local System
Author: Jason Storm (jms@lasergun.org)

VULNERABILITY

With access to a USB Keyboard connected to the computer running Mac OS X 10.2.7 and prior (and possibly 10.2.8) the user can hold down control-c during startup to be dropped to the administrative full controlling root shell prompt due to init crashing.

init will crash within three minutes into the booting process and will drop you into a root shell. With …

Mac OS X Security Issue – Screensaver Security Issue/Hack

Security Issue: Mac OS X Screensaver Password Protection Bug

Systems Vulnerable: Mac OS X 10.2.6 and prior
Date Fixed: TBA

Apple’s Mac OS X screensaver apparently contains a buffer overflow vulnerability that causes the screensaver to dump not requiring the user to enter a legitimate username and password.

When enabling the password protection on the Mac OS X screensaver users are required to authenticate before leaving the screensaver to gain access to the desktop again. Delfim Machado notified Apple that he had learned of a bug that caused the screensaver to exit without properly …

Mac OS X Security Issue – TruBlueEnvironment Privilege Escalation Attack

Computers running Mac OS X prior to 10.2.4 and unpatched contain a vulnerability that can be exploited to create files that can be run at elevated privileges because of the TruBlueEnvironment. Included is the security advisory covering the issue discovered by @Stake’s Dave.

For those unable to update they can change the permissions of the vulnerable files to the admin group.

sudo chown .admin /System/Library/CoreServices/Classic\ Startup.app/Contents/Resources/TruBlueEnvironment

sudo chmod 4750 /System/Library/CoreServices/Classic\ Startup.app/Contents/Resources/TruBlueEnvironment

Security Advisory

Advisory Name: TruBlueEnvironment Privilege Escalation Attack
Release Date: 02/14/2003
Application: TruBlueEnvironment
Platform: MacOS X (10.2.3 and below)
Severity: Local users can gain root privileges
Author: Dave G.
Vendor …