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Non-root user that (suddenly) has elevated privileges in a specific command (only). [Have I been hacked?] (self.linux)

submitted 1 year ago by GustavoM to c/[email protected]

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Title. Long,short story: creating or editing files with nano as my non-root user gives (the file) elevated privileges, like I have ran it w/ sudo or as root. And the (only) "security hole" that I can think of is a nextdns docker container running as root. That aside, its very "overkill" security-wise (cap_drop=ALL, non-root image, security_opt=no_new_privileges, etc.).

It's like someone tried to hack me but gave up halfway. Am I right or wrong to assume this? Just curious.

Thanks in advance.

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[–] TootSweet 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're not running nano in a docker container, are you? You're running nano on a host Linux system, yeah?

Oh, and did you see the ps aux | grep nano one? (Sorry about that. I probably edited that into my post while you were working on a response.)

[–] GustavoM 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No and yes. And it returns me only a single line with $mysudoerusername 28596 0.0 0.1 5896 2016 pts/0 5+ 15:52 0:00 grep nano.

[–] TootSweet 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It returns that while you have nano running? If so, maybe try ps aux (without the grep part) and just look through until you find "nano" listed. Just to make sure whether it's running as root or your non-root user.

(And just to be clear, "my sudoer username" means the non-root user that you're running nano as, right?)

Just a gut feeling, but it feels to me so far like this probably isn't a hack or security thing. But of course, once the (no pun intended) root issue is found, that'll provide more info.

[–] GustavoM 1 points 1 year ago

No. ps aux remains the same. And yes, "My sudoer username" is my non-root user with sudo privileges. Therefore, the "sudoer".

And I'm not really "pulling my hair out" because of this, honestly -- just curious if this can be mentioned as a hack, a hack attempt, or whatevertheheck. Because this is the first time in my entire life that this happened with me, so yep.