Re: psql and security

> > As you can see, psql reconnect as any user if the password is same
as
> > foo. Of course this is due to the careless password setting, but I
> > think it's better to prompt ANY TIME the user tries to switch to
> > another user.
>
> I'm not sure. A few users have voiced concerns about this before, but
we
> have no count of the users that might enjoy this convenience. ;-)
>
> Basically, the attack scenario here is that if you have a psql running
and
> leave your terminal, someone else can come in and get access to any
other
> database that you might have access to, without knowing your password.
> But given a running psql, figuring out the password isn't so hard
(running
> a debugger or inducing a core dump would be likely options), and
> concluding that this password is valid for all databases is trivial
since
> that's the default setup.

This feature was added to conveniently let an already connected user
switch to another database. Imho you could distinguish the exact case at
hand,
where a new user was specified and prompt for a new password.

Andreas