AutoFSD was found to be vulnerable to a remote exploit.
8 Dec. 1998
Summary
AutoFSD, a RPC server which answers file system mount and umount requests from the autofs file system, was found to be exploitable, which might allow a malicious user to gain root access.
AutoFSD is vulnerable to attack because of the following:
Whenever an AutoFS daemon receives a map argument from a client, the server will attempt to verify whether it is executable or not. If AutoFS daemon determines that the map has an executable flag, the server will append the client's key and attempt to execute it.
Therefore, this is by sending a map name that is executable on the server,
and a key beginning with a semicolon or a newline followed by a command, an unprivileged user can execute arbitrary commands as the root (which is usually the user on which the mentioned daemon runs with).
