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find: Security Considerations

 
 11 Security Considerations
 **************************
 
 Security considerations are important if you are using 'find' or 'xargs'
 to search for or process files that don't belong to you or which other
 people have control.  Security considerations relating to 'locate' may
 also apply if you have files which you do not want others to see.
 
    The most severe forms of security problems affecting 'find' and
 related programs are when third parties bring about a situation allowing
 them to do something they would normally not be able to accomplish.
 This is called _privilege elevation_.  This might include deleting files
 they would not normally be able to delete.  It is common for the
 operating system to periodically invoke 'find' for self-maintenance
 purposes.  These invocations of 'find' are particularly problematic from
 a security point of view as these are often invoked by the superuser and
 search the entire filesystem hierarchy.  Generally, the severity of any
 associated problem depends on what the system is going to do with the
 files found by 'find'.
 

Menu

 
· Levels of Risk      What is your level of exposure to security problems?
· Security Considerations for find  Security problems with find
· Security Considerations for xargs Security problems with xargs
· Security Considerations for locate Security problems with locate
· Security Summary That was all very complex, what does it boil down to?
· Further Reading on Security
 

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