[Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

HM Wamboldt wrote:

> It's my understanding that the current design of Ethereal is such that
> malicious packets embedded in a protocol that is being monitored can
> possibly, or even likely lead to the execution of arbitrary code as
> root. This could potentially give control of the machine to a remote
> attacker.
>
> It's also my understanding that with the current design it isn't even
> possible to give any assurance that the program is in any way secure.
>
> A further issue is that some of the protocol analysis code
> (dissectors) are from 3rd parties and have not been audited for
> security and might facilitate such an attack.
>
> Perhaps an Ethereal developer or someone more knowledgeable in
> Ethereal's internals would care to comment?
>
> I would like to know if the Ethereal development team has a strategy
> to improve security.

There's been a decent amount of discussion about this in the past 
(primarily on the development mailing list).

For a summary of the discussion, see the Wiki entry on Privilege Separation:

http://wiki.ethereal.com/Development_2fPrivilegeSeparation

Regards,
-Jeff