Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript; New OS X Trojan Horse in the Wild
Half the Mac OS X boxes in the world (confirmed on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard) can be rooted through AppleScript: osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'; Works for normal users and admins, provided the normal user wasn't switched to via fast user switching. Secure? I think not.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/1919224
Successful exploits allow local attackers to execute arbitrary code with superuser privileges, completely compromising the affected computer.
Vulnerable:
Apple Mac OS X Server 10.5.3
Apple Mac OS X Server 10.5.2
Apple Mac OS X Server 10.5.1
Apple Mac OS X Server 10.5
Apple Mac OS X 10.5.3
Apple Mac OS X 10.5.2
Apple Mac OS X 10.5.1
Apple Mac OS X 10.5
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/29831/info
SecureMac has discovered multiple variants of a new Trojan horse in the wild that affects Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. The Trojan horse is currently being distributed from a hacker website, where discussion has taken place on distributing the Trojan horse through iChat and Limewire.
The Trojan horse runs hidden on the system, and allows a malicious user complete remote access to the system, can transmit system and user passwords, and can avoid detection by opening ports in the firewall and turning off system logging. Additionally, the AppleScript.THT Trojan horse can log keystrokes, take pictures with the built-in Apple iSight camera, take screenshots, and turn on file sharing. The Trojan horse exploits a recently discovered vulnerability with the Apple Remote Desktop Agent, which allows it to run as root.
The Trojan is distributed as either a compiled AppleScript, called ASthtv05 (60 KB in size), or as an application bundle called AStht_v06 (3.1 MB in size). The user must download and open the Trojan horse in order to become infected. Once the Trojan horse is running, it will move itself into the /Library/Caches/ folder, and add itself to the System Login Items.
http://www.securemac.com/applescript-tht-trojan-horse.php