[Info-vax] Creating an open source version of VMS, was: Re: OpenVMS Hobbyist Notification

[Simon Clubley]

On 2020-03-11, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
> The vulnerability is that shells running in supervisor mode have
> access to the privileges of programs which they run (which would
> be a hideous design decision in code written to today's security
> standards.)
>

That needs clarification and would be better rewritten as:

The vulnerability was possible because shells running in supervisor
mode have access to the privileges of programs which they run (which
would be a hideous design decision in code written to today's security
standards.)

The above is a major weakness which still exists in VMS but it is not
an actual vulnerability in isolation. The actual vulnerability was finding
a way to allow non-privileged users to run their own executable shellcode
within the context of DCL itself so the above weakness could be exploited.

The patch just closed off a path I discovered which allowed that ability
for a non-privileged user to run their own shellcode within the context
of DCL itself.

Sorry.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.