Re: Security Implications of running startx from command line - was Re: Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Fri 21 Mar 2014 at 11:18:19 +0000, Darac Marjal wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:06:03AM +0000, Robin wrote:
> > I may have missed something. If someone has physical access to your
> > machine can't they just power off and go into single user mode and
> > change the root password?
>
> Maybe, maybe not. Console access doesn't have to mean complete access.
> The scenario I always have in my head for these sorts of things is a
> Computer Lab at a university/college. You can allow anyone to come up
> and use the machine via the keyboard/mouse/VDU attached to it, but to
> counter the attack vector you mention, you simply lock the computer
> itself away in a secure cage under the desk. That also stops the
> "security vector" of someone simply picking up the machine and walking
> off with it ;)
For the situation when X is started with startx would 'startx & exit'
prevent the termination of an X session even if CTRL+ALT+FN etc gets
console access?
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