Lesson plan

Rootpipe

Rootpipe is a security vulnerability found in some versions of OS X that allows privilege escalation whereby a user with administrative rights, or a program executed by an administrative user, can obtain superuser (root) access. This is considered problematic as the first user account created under OS X is furnished with administrator rights by default. By leveraging other security vulnerabilities on a system, such as an unpatched web browser, rootpipe could be used by an attacker to help gain complete control of the operating system. Emil Kvarnhammar of TrueSec, a security firm credited with the discovery, says that he found the vulnerability after several days of binary analysis. He recommends creating an account without administrative privileges to be used for normal everyday work and using FileVault. An older exploit for the same issue was later published on exploit-db, suggesting the issue dates back to June 2010. It appears the exploit was used by the author during a presentation on Trusteer Rapport at 44con 2011. The vulnerability was reported to Apple Inc. in October 2014, and has been reported as present in OS X versions 10.7.5, 10.8.2, 10.9.5 and 10.10.2. OS X 10.10.3 was officially designated as patched by Apple, but Kvarnhammar (crediting Patrick Wardle) has blogged that the vulnerability is still present in that version.…

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Article summary

Rootpipe is a security vulnerability found in some versions of OS X that allows privilege escalation whereby a user with administrative rights, or a program executed by an administrative user, can obtain superuser (root) access. This is considered problematic as the first user account created under OS X is furnished with administrator rights by default. By leveraging other security vulnerabilities on a system, such as an unpatched web browser, rootpipe could be used by an attacker to help gain complete control of the operating system. Emil Kvarnhammar of TrueSec, a security firm credited with the discovery, says that he found the vulnerability after several days of binary analysis. He recommends creating an account without administrative privileges to be used for normal everyday work and using FileVault. An older exploit for the same issue was later published on exploit-db, suggesting the issue dates back to June 2010. It appears the exploit was used by the author during a presentation on Trusteer Rapport at 44con 2011. The vulnerability was reported to Apple Inc. in October 2014, and has been reported as present in OS X versions 10.7.5, 10.8.2, 10.9.5 and 10.10.2. OS X 10.10.3 was officially designated as patched by Apple, but Kvarnhammar (crediting Patrick Wardle) has blogged that the vulnerability is still present in that version.…

Key claims

  1. publication date: 2010 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the publication date is "2010". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1289489120

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.