GNU bug report logs - #8427
[SECURITY] sql.el -- comint process passwords are leaked to ps(1) listing

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From: Andrew Hyatt <ahyatt <at> gmail.com>
To: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 8427 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#8427: [SECURITY] sql.el -- comint process passwords are leaked to ps(1) listing
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2018 12:54:31 -0500

This is fairly easy to fix - mysql can check to see if the user entered
a blank for the password prompt, and instead of not sending a password,
send just the "--password" argument so the user can enter it into the
process instead of the command line.  I have a fix ready to check in
that works for mysql (I'm not sure which other products support that).

Alternatively, we can just have a variable that controls whether
passwords are asked for on the command line at all (if sql-password is
unset), which could default to nil, making the security better by
default.

BTW, I guess the attack here is that another user process can use
something like strace to snoop on emacs's child processeses and obtain
the mysql password?

Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Apparently, no they cannot, since mysql replaces the password characters
>> with x's:
>
> Of course, that still leaves the chars exposed during a short time window.
>
>
>         Stefan

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