Security-risk on gridscan.com

From: Michael Metz [SpeedPartner] (metzat_private)
Date: Fri May 24 2002 - 15:01:34 PDT

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    As reported by German ZDnet today (2002-05-24) in article
    http://news.zdnet.de/story/0,,s2110809,00.html?020524165655 there is a new 
    "live search engine" under Gridscan.com. It only requires you to put a one-line 
    php-script from the Gridscan-homepage to your webserver, execute it once and 
    leave the script at this location. To unsubscribe from the search engine simply 
    delete the script. But the php-script-solution is a bit "risky": The php-script 
    you have to download contains only the row:
    
    <? require("http://www.tobiaspreis.de/grid.php"); ?>
    
    This way the administrator of tobiaspreis.de could easily modify his grid.php 
    to do almost anything on your webserver with full user rights of your php-
    scripts. Also is the server tobiaspreis.de a good target for hackers because 
    this way they can gain access to a lot of large websites. In environments where 
    php-scripts run under the the customers identity instead of "nobody" this bears 
    a large security hole.
    
    Further more the "live search"-technic can result in a high amount of cpu- and 
    harddisk-load. For a full explanation of the problems refer to the full comment 
    on this problem in German language at:
    
        http://www.speedpartner.de/presse/020524.pdf
    
    By the way: Why doesn't it download from Gridscan.com but from a private 
    homepage?
    
    
    Mit freundlichen Grüßen
     Michael Metz
    
    ****************************************************
    SpeedPartner, Inh. Michael Metz
    Neukirchener Str. 57, 41470 Neuss
    Tel.: 02137 / 929 829, Fax: 02137 / 137 17
    E-Mail: infoat_private
    ****************************************************
    



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