Find Command: Part IV

Posted by Ameya on November 5th, 2007 filed in Security, Tips & Trix, linux

To search the entire system for SUID or SGID files, you can run the following command:

find / -path /proc -prune -o -type f -perm +6000 -ls

The -prune option in this example is used to skip the /proc filesystem.

World-Writable Files

World-writable files are a security risk since it allows anyone to modify them. Additionally, world-writable directories allow anyone to add or delete files.

To locate world-writable files and directories, you can use the following command:

find / -path /proc -prune -o -perm -2 ! -type l -ls

The “! -type l” parameter skips all symbolic links since symbolic links are always world-writable. However, this is not a problem as long as the target of the link is not world-writable, which is checked by the above find command.

To locate files not owned by any user or group, use the following command:

find / -path /proc -prune -o -nouser -o -nogroup

Thanks to Werner Puschitz for providing such a wonderful tips.