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Shell Simulation Via CGI

Posted by Hemos on from the playing-around dept.

mischi writes "CGI-Shell simulates a shell using CGI. So everybody who has a CGI-directory on a web-server, also has its own shell on it -- comparable with Telnet or SSH. That's really practical, because most webhosters don't offer a shell (for free) -- but do offer CGI. With CGI-Shell you can execute commands, copy files or just explore your webserver. Even a history and auto-completion with tabulator are included. "

4 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. ok... by TerryAtWork · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Is this not the ultimate cracker tool you ever saw?

    What were they thinking?

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  2. Script Kiddie Paradise by slagdogg · · Score: 1, Redundant

    We have enough issues with hacking when the kiddies need to exploit buffer overruns to gain shell access ... this is going to make life even more fun :P

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    (Score:-1, Wrong)
  3. Not to mention.. by antis0c · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Countless local exploits suddenly made available remotely..

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    ..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
  4. Whose bright idea was this? by jdreed1024 · · Score: 1, Redundant
    This seems like a Really Bad Idea(TM).

    Let's examine some problems, shall we: -Most servers (if not all) run CGI scripts as a given user (ie: nobody, www, cgi, apache). If that user is a crippled or limited user, then CGI-Shell is useless for running commands other than "ls". If not, then that user could potentially kill things like the server process, which is also bad. -If all CGI scripts are run as the same user (see above), then anyone has access to files or directories created by another cgi-shell process. After all, they're owned by the same user. -Cleartext passwords via htpasswd. They didn't even _try_ to use SSL - it's so not hard. -Man-in-the-middle attack? Anyone could hijack your "shell" session. -Can anyone say backdoor?

    Sure, this is cool to play around with and install on your home machine, but if anyone lets this into a production environment they're on crack. Either install sshd, or don't. But don't try to implement it over CGI.

    I wonder if this story is just a troll...

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