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Kernel Exploit Cause Of Debian Compromise

Posted by simoniker on from the slightly-disturbing dept.

mbanck writes "The cause of the recent Debian Project server compromise has been published by the Debian security team: 'Forensics revealed a burneye encrypted exploit. Robert van der Meulen managed to decrypt the binary which revealed a kernel exploit. Study of the exploit by the RedHat and SuSE kernel and security teams quickly revealed that the exploit used an integer overflow in the brk system call. Using this bug it is possible for a userland program to trick the kernel into giving access to the full kernel address space'. This issue has been fixed in 2.4.23. Thus, the Linux kernel compromise was not Debian specific."

3 of 673 comments (clear)

  1. Time for better security. by Sheetrock · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's obvious that with the gradual acceptance of Linux by the business community, it's time for a stricter security model to be adopted. While OpenBSD has not shared in the commercial success of Linux, it does have one area of technical superiority: its security review process has yet to permit a remote root compromise in a standard install.

    Linux is a compelling choice in the Free Software world because of its pace of development and wide availability of software. However, it is this strength that is becoming a weakness. Perhaps it is time to slow down and review with more vigor to mimic the accomplishment of OpenBSD.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Re:Well, well, well... by HeghmoH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The worst Linux exploit of the year: an obscure kernel vulnerability that allowed one person to gain control of one box, disrupting one small OS group for a few days.

    The worst Windows exploit of the year: a hole in the RPC services (which you can't turn off) that allowed a worm to gain control of millions of Windows boxes, disrupting the entire internet.

    How does this make Linux equally bad as Windows, then?

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