Vulnerability

    permissions

Affected

    MacOS X

Description

    kangoo found  following.   Permissions of  /Users/yourname/Desktop
    which  show  your  desktop  is  xrwxrwxrwx, allowing every user to
    read/write on your own Desktop folder.

    Turns out that those created during the beta test period were  the
    problematic ones.  After scrubbed the disk and reinstallayion  all
    accounts  shoul  have  the  correct  permissions.   However, after
    questioning  few  people  about  these  permission corruption it's
    sounds like it can happen even  on a fresh install (not on  top of
    a (erased) beta).

    For example, a user reports  having rw set for everybody  on every
    user's desktop  folder on  a clean  install.   The same  partition
    holds a French MacOS 9.1, and  OSX is very likely to be  installed
    in French.  He says he has not installed "special" soft (Xfree  or
    other hacks).  Dev.Tools are installed.

    Another user pointed out that it might be a localization bug.   As
    it already happened  in the past,  we are likely  to consider this
    option as a serious one.

    'patpro'  managed  to  reproduce  the  permission  corruption   of
    Desktop.  Here is step by step what he has done:

        1- booted  an english  install of  OSX and  logged in as admin
           User (english).
        2- added a user (test)
        3- logged out
        4- logged in as 'test'
        5- tuned OSX so that 'test' is a french user.
        6- logged out and in to check /Users/test/Desktop's permission:
           drwx------
        7- logged out and logged in as root (english) (bad bad boy)
        8- set prefered language to french
        9- logged out and in to ensure everything will work in french
       10- added a user (test2)
       11- logged out
       12- logged in as 'test2' (everything looks english)
       13- checked /Users/test2/Desktop's permission : drwxrwxrwx
       14- TADAAAAM here we are !

    Here  is  the  probleme:  Desktop  is  not defined in all of these
    frameworks:

        bash-2.05$ ls -l user.template/
        total 7
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 14  2000 Documents
        drwx------  13 patpro  wheel  512 Feb 21 03:56 Library
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Movies
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Music
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Pictures
        drwxr-xr-x   3 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Public
        drwxr-xr-x   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 23  2000 Sites

    For French,  German, Italian  and Spanish,  Desktop is  created at
    login time with drwxrwxrwx permission.

    For  English,  Dutch  and  Japanese  user.template, the Desktop is
    inside the tarball:

        bash-2.05$ ls -l user.template/
        total 8
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Jan 31 00:17 Desktop
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 14  2000 Documents
        drwx------  15 patpro  wheel  512 Feb  3 01:40 Library
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Movies
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Music
        drwx------   2 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Pictures
        drwxr-xr-x   3 patpro  wheel  512 Nov 15  2000 Public
        drwxr-xr-x   3 patpro  wheel  512 Feb 14 01:31 Sites

    ... with the right permissions.

Solution

    Fix: chmod 755 or chmod 750 /Users/yourname/Desktop

    Just untar the user.gnutar add the Desktop folder with  drwx------
    and tar.