find: Security Considerations

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1 11 Security Considerations
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1 Security considerations are important if you are using 'find' or 'xargs'
1 to search for or process files that don't belong to you or which other
1 people have control.  Security considerations relating to 'locate' may
1 also apply if you have files which you do not want others to see.
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1    The most severe forms of security problems affecting 'find' and
1 related programs are when third parties bring about a situation allowing
1 them to do something they would normally not be able to accomplish.
1 This is called _privilege elevation_.  This might include deleting files
1 they would not normally be able to delete.  It is common for the
1 operating system to periodically invoke 'find' for self-maintenance
1 purposes.  These invocations of 'find' are particularly problematic from
1 a security point of view as these are often invoked by the superuser and
1 search the entire filesystem hierarchy.  Generally, the severity of any
1 associated problem depends on what the system is going to do with the
1 files found by 'find'.
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Menu

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· 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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