jeudi 15 janvier 2015

I often log into X as normal user (of course), open terminal and switch to root:


su -

I have then a terminal owned by user but effectively with root privileges.

Are there any security issues in this situation?

Can a malware/exploit running under normal user potentially get access to the root console (possibly by exploiting some bug in X server?

Is this less safe, than if I had switched to text console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and logged in as root directly ?

Clarification:

I have to enter the root password every time I switch to root using su -

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