*** This bug is a security vulnerability ***

You have been subscribed to a public security bug by Seth Arnold (seth-arnold):

Hi,

my little daughter discovered a logon screen bypass in Ubuntu Mate 21.10
after hitting the keyboard for a while.

It turns out that several keyboard shortcuts are allowed while Ubuntu
Mate is locked (arctica-greeter):

- Mod4 + S (mate-search-tool)
- Mod4 + E (Open Caja / File Explorer)
- CTRL + Shift + Esc (mate-system-monitor)
- PRNT (Screenshot)

All of the mentioned shortcuts could be used to spawn a file explorer
(Caja) or various other binaries as user "lightdm", who owns the logon
screen.

Although an interactive terminal like mate-terminal, xterm, lxterm etc.
could not be opened directly, there are various options to run commands
as the lightdm user, for example by creating a shell script using
"caja", and execute it directly using the GUI.

I've attached Proof-of-Concept GIFs for all shortcuts mentioned above.
There might be additional shortcuts that could be used to achieve the
same, however I'm not aware about every shortcut that is configured, but
I suppose that the root cause is located somewhere in arctica-greeter,
rather than within every single binary launched by shortcuts.

The bug was reproduced on a fresh installation of Ubuntu Mate 21.10. I
haven't tested other versions of Ubuntu Mate yet.

Please find additional version details below:

$ apt-cache policy lightdm

lightdm:
  Installed: 1.30.0-0ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1.30.0-0ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1.30.0-0ubuntu4 500
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy arctica-greeter

arctica-greeter:
  Installed: 0.99.1.5-2nmu1
  Candidate: 0.99.1.5-2nmu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.99.1.5-2nmu1 500
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Thanks,
Basti

** Affects: ubuntu-mate
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Affects: arctica-greeter (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Affects: lightdm (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Affects: mate-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: groovy hirsute impish
-- 
Logon screen can be bypassed using various shortcuts
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1948339
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