Saturday, June 1, 2019

ctrl + s to Escape Chrome Kiosk

Consider a tablet at a store kiosk where the owner wants to display one particular web page to users. They don't want the user to have access to any other programs or files on the tablet. In this case, they are running Chrome in a restricted mode, using this command:

 chrome.exe --kiosk "keepuseronthispage.com"

In theory, this is a restricted mode doesn't allow right-click context menu, doesn't show the browser address bar or the task bar, and keeps the user out of the system. So... how do we access the rest of the system? Well, if it's a Windows machine, as in this case, kiosk mode can easily be bypassed if the user presses ctrl + s.


650x215xWindows_08

Use the "save as" file explorer window that pops up to run cmd.exe. Now you have access to all the local resources.

NOTE: This doesn't seem to work on Mac OS...which is probably for the best.