Security Considerations Troubleshooters. 1999 by Steve Litt. All rights reserved. Materials from guest authors copyrighted by them and licensed for perpetual use to Troubleshooting Professional Magazine.
User assumes all risk and responsibility for any outcome.
By Steve Litt Telnet is not the only security consideration. Web access to shell commands also can compromise security. Consider, for instance, a simple form that acts as a command line. Note that this command will succeed for user nobody on a typical default Linux server. If, in your haste via telnet, you have created a directory and files with mode 777, any visitor can delete your files via your html command line form.