bit of a dodgy request to be honest.

[Flakes]

i dont know if ill be breaking any terms or conditions by posting this so im gonna ask for anyone who knows the answer to PM me instead.

i have been asked by the company i work for to test how well a linux machine would hold up against user attack, basically i work in a school and we are being given some linux based machines, with some user accounts, now these machines will be going to students but i have been asked to test these machines to see if it is possible to get around certain privileges that are set in place.

an example would be installing personal software onto the device, or changing the administrator password, accessing files on the C: drive and deleting/editing them or using a proxy/socket program to bypass internet restrictions etc...

obviously the first thing i need to find out is how one would normally go about this, which is fine i have set up linux machines in the past and its only the odd thing that throws me off, however ive never looked at any advanced techniques one might use to there own ends, hence why i am here. My question is, is there any particular commands or directions you know off that would allow a user account to access the machine as if they where an administrator?

Best Regards,
Flakes

 

[linux_0]

0. Get authorization in writing from 3 of your superiors to do this.

1. Check to make sure what you are doing is legal in the UK and wherever the systems are.

2. google for exploits and try them.

3. use SELinux and make a good policy for your systems.

4. ( optional ) hire a professional to give you attack code.

Good luck

 

[audiovoodoo]

Encrypted disc? Unless you're locking at the HW level I don't see how you can avoid it if you really don't want people to be able to edit files. Pen drives and LiveCD's are just too easy nowadays.

 

[linux_0]

Yup, audiovoodoo is right!

Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt

 

[audiovoodoo]

Yes... but can we hold off making that a popular config untill I've figured out how to do it! 😉

I'm having a chat with Flakes on the PM as I know his face from other places. It's made me realise that most of my Linux experience has been on stand alone single user systems so I'm interested to see what I can learn on this one too.

Just as an Idea, how feasable is it to set up sandboxed 'labs' that students can play with, save configs and yet have an easy way to return to a known config. It would seem a shame to lock down a system completely that by design encourages people to play... and learn!

 

[linux_0]

*dora 9 gives you an option to encrypt during installation

I think I may have seen that option on *buntu somewhere...

Semper fi

 

[audiovoodoo]

Must be an 8.10 thing. I've not seen it on any version I've used as part of the install and back when I did have a look in 7.04 it ate your spalsh screen!

 

[linux_0]

I know for a fact Fedora 9 supports full whole disk encryption.

I thought I saw it on Ubuntu 8.04 or later as well but I don't remember for sure.

 

[Flakes]

hmm now encrypting the disk is an interesting one, im not sure how that would effect us in the future though but if it could stop livecd attacks then thats a good thing, but if it stops us from running a livecd for diagnostics thats bad.

these computers we are being given are the Eee PC with a different build of linux they haven't told me what build, and are locking it down themselves, then its my job to break it in a way in which a student would try to break it. Luckily ive got time to do the research into it since i wont be getting the laptop till December... but the main idea is,

1. they lock it down
2. i break it
3. Report my findings with possible fixes
4. they fix it.

if all goes we will we get 50 odd of these EEEPCs to hand out to students to use for internet and office work.

P.S

on a personal note im hoping its not as easy to break into as a windows machine, all you need in windows is to boot off a cd that resets the admin password to anything you want.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Now this could be fun

First good starting point, the Eee has no CD drive. It does however allow you to boot of USB CD, PEN or USB floppy. You can lock down the BIOS although this is at a very basic PC level an so you can flash the BIOS to defaults if you can be bothered to crack the case and clear the CMOS bat.

Depending on which Eee it is there might be a HDD, more likely a small SSD. This will likely be 4Gb in size although it could be 8 or 16. The default Linux that ships with the Eee is based on Mandriva linux with a few tweeks. Now you can install pretty much anything you want on there but lots of the custom installs are based on Ubuntu, eeeUbuntu running with the Netbook Re-mix UI being the current fave. I've had this running myself and it's a nice UI that works well with the limitations of the device so I'd guess this is likely to be your environment to work with.

Give them a call and ask then what the platform is likely to be when they ship. It's a very reasonable tech question given that this has to work with your existing infrastructure.