Die-hard bug bytes Linux kernel for second time2010-09-16 09:25 by DanielaTags: Linux, security
The Linux kernel has been purged of a bug that gave root access to untrusted users – again. The vulnerability in a component of the operating system that translates values from 64 bits to 32 bits (and vice versa) was fixed once before – in 2007 with the release of version 2.6.22.7. But several months later, developers inadvertently rolled back the change, once again leaving the OS open to attacks that allow unprivileged users to gain full root access. The bug was originally discovered by the late hacker Wojciech "cliph" Purczynski. But Ben Hawkes, the researcher who discovered the kernel regression bug, said here that he grew suspicious when he recently began tinkering under the hood of the open-source OS and saw signs the flaw was still active. "I showed this to my friend Robert Swiecki who had written an exploit for the original bug in 2007, and he immediately said something along the lines of 'well this is interesting,'" Hawkes wrote. "We pulled up his old exploit from 2007, and with a few minor modifications to the privilege escalation code, we had a root shell." Read more -here-
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