Re: Gnuplot qua Web-Service

[Jonathan T. <jt...@ae...>]

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Peter Danenberg wrote:
>      I'm running Gnuplot as a web-service, and would like to
> castrate its feral shell- and system-facilities; would  any-
> one  mind  inspecting  the  attached  patch to command.c for
> unintended consequences?

Even if you completely shut off gnuplot's ability to fork shells
and run other commands, gnuplot is very likely not secure against
malicious inputs.  That is, it is very likely that there exist malicious
gnuplot command sequences that could trigger a buffer overflow, allowing
the attacker to execute arbitrary code of her choosing in place of gnuplot.

Thus, you sould look very carefully at the security risks of allowing
untrusted web users to talk directly to gnuplot -- they might well be
able to take over control of the gnuplot process and use it for malicious
purposes.

ciao,

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jt...@ae...>
   Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
   Golm, Germany, "Old Europe"     http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html      
   "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
    powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                      -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam