Potential Random console input overflow? #6043

Open
opened 2026-01-31 00:28:27 +00:00 by claunia · 0 comments
Owner

Originally created by @DSLM82 on GitHub (Jan 19, 2020).

Consider the following Bash command line:

while [ loop != done]; do cat /dev/random; done

This will dump an endless string of random characters to the console forever.

After a few moments, this reliably results in the title bar in the terminal app changing and, shortly thereafter, the terminal hanging.

I wonder if this could be the basis for a buffer overflow, which if run against a terminal in privileged mode might potentially open an attack vector.

I've reproduced this in Kali and Ubuntu, as well as with a friend who tested it with a clean install of Terminal/Ubuntu.

Originally created by @DSLM82 on GitHub (Jan 19, 2020). Consider the following Bash command line: while [ loop != done]; do cat /dev/random; done This will dump an endless string of random characters to the console forever. After a few moments, this reliably results in the title bar in the terminal app changing and, shortly thereafter, the terminal hanging. I wonder if this could be the basis for a buffer overflow, which if run against a terminal in privileged mode might potentially open an attack vector. I've reproduced this in Kali and Ubuntu, as well as with a friend who tested it with a clean install of Terminal/Ubuntu.
claunia added the Resolution-Duplicate label 2026-01-31 00:28:27 +00:00
Sign in to join this conversation.
1 Participants
Notifications
Due Date
No due date set.
Dependencies

No dependencies set.

Reference: starred/terminal#6043