Ubuntu Security :: HOME - /bin Location In PATH ?

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 only be dismayed to find ${HOME}/bin FIRST IN THE PATH. I blogged about it at my blog (I sudo an xterm rather than just sudoing to get a different background for the sudo'd xterm): [url]

I agree that some new user should probably not be logging on as root. But if the replacement for 'ls' is in their ${HOME}/bin/ the sudo'd shell inherits the same PATH, umask, and everything else! In general I take a dim view of a sudo only way of doing things. It seems to cause more problems than it solves for disciplined, knowledgeable users. In the case of Ubuntu it caused me to create a /root folder for root to reset the umask back from 077 which is what I use over to 022 which is what root should use. The /root/.profile of course made sure there is no /home/me/bin in the sudo'd PATH. It didn't matter because somebody is not just SETTING the file perms and is instead calculating them based off of modifications to the umask. JUST SET THEM! I ran into a problem with GRUB getting things fouled up because I was having to remove the new kernels and instead of using the command line option (much prefereable) used Synaptic Manager instead: [url]

In fhe case of an infection living in a user's file space you really should want to go in to clean it out as some other user than the user that is infected. Having said that the hackers seem to be going for the whole enchilada right off the bat. A WARNING is in order here. DO NOT USE A ROOT ACCOUNT OR SUDO FOR NORMAL TASKS! But please put ${HOME}/bin last in the PATH or preferably don't even put it in the PATH at all. Let users add it themselves if they want it. Also once hackers figure out that hijacking a sudo tty (from what I just read else-where here I would say several hackers are working on doing that right now - sendmail my ****) is a dandy way of doing things you really will need to provide for ways of cleaning a user infestation out by going at it some other way than through that infected user. A lot of Ubuntu users have only one login account, the one they created when they set the machine up.