[plug] sudo

[Alex Nordstrom]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:37, Arie Hol wrote:
> If you have no root account - you minimise the risk of an outsider
> gaining access to and control of of your box - intruders need to gain
> access as a user first - this makes their task more difficult.
>
> They first need to crack a 'username' and then they have to crack the
> username 'password', and then sudo to get root access (subject to any
> restrictions on sudo).
>
> With a 'root' account they only have to crack the 'password' and they
> own your box.

Although, supposing the attack vector is SSH, any sensible configuration 
should prohibit root logins, which means an attacker would have to 
figure out (1) an SSH-allowed user (2) the user's password and
(3) root's password. In this respect, sudo is less secure, as it omits 
the third requirement.

-- 
Alex Nordstrom
http://lx.n3.net/
Please do not CC me in followups; I am subscribed to plug.
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