Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Homeland Security Uncovers Critical Flaw in X11

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nice-catch dept.

Amy's Robot writes "An open-source security audit program funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has flagged a critical vulnerability in the X Window System (X11) which is used in Unix and Linux systems. A missing parentheses in a bit of code is to blame. The error can grant a user root access, and was discovered using an automated code-scanning tool." While serious, the flaw has already been corrected.

3 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. How did it get through? by CCFreak2K · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'm not much in the ways of code, but shouldn't the compiler have caught the problem? Doesn't it hit an error if not all of your parenthesees (phonetic) are closed?

    --
    "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
  2. Re:Missing Parenthesis?? by mattwarden · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Yes. There was not an unmatched parenthesis. There was a missing set of parentheses.

  3. Re:Related news by mrchaotica · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Here's an idea: fix your code and then it'll compile without warnings!

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz