Comment 1 for bug 50386

I tried a wireless-key containing a semicolon and a command. The command gets executed.

There's probably no security implications in this, since you already have to have elevated rights to be able to edit /etc/network/interfaces.

Someone who's able to should mark this as a security problem, so that someone more knowledgeable than me looks into it.

"Proof" follows (note the /x.x file):

root@ws-desktop:/# ls
bin dev initrd lib mnt root sys var
boot etc initrd.img lost+found opt sbin tmp vmlinuz
cdrom home initrd.img.old media proc srv usr vmlinuz.old
root@ws-desktop:/# grep wireless-key /etc/network/interfaces
wireless-key abcd; touch /x.x
root@ws-desktop:/# ifup wlan0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.3
Copyright 2004-2005 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

Listening on LPF/wlan0/xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Sending on LPF/wlan0/xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Sending on Socket/fallback

root@ws-desktop:/#
root@ws-desktop:/# ls
bin dev initrd lib mnt root sys var x.x
boot etc initrd.img lost+found opt sbin tmp vmlinuz
cdrom home initrd.img.old media proc srv usr vmlinuz.old
root@ws-desktop:/#