How To Exploit NULL Pointers

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what was so bad about NULL pointer exceptions? An MIT Linux kernel programmer explains how to turn any NULL pointer into a root exploit on Linux. (There was also a previous installment about virtual memory and how to make NULL pointers benign.)"

Comments

Easy and concise

[Lord Grey]

TFA is an extremely well-written, easy-to-follow tutorial. I "played along at home" (well, at work, actually) as the author recommended and exploited a system on the first try. Great stuff!

Hang on, one of our SysAdmins wants to talk to me about something.

BRB

Re:I Know How To Do It

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bad attempt at trolling. You could make various funny posts involving Windows and security, and this is what you came up with? Up your game, mister.

Re:Assumes a CALL to the NULL ptr (not any referen

[McNally]

I was intrigued by the ./ posting, which claimed that the tutorial would show how to exploit any NULL pointer dereference. The actual article, however, requires a CALL to the NULL pointer.

For further context, see my whitepaper on how to turn any kdawson-posted Slashdot story into a NULL issue.

Re:I Know How To Do It

[Stupid McStupidson]

Well, I upped my game. Now up yours.

Re:OS dependent

[Megaweapon]

But it's a bad summary.

java.lang.RedundantSlashdotObservationException

The sensible thing to do...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as far as I can tell is simply to ban null pointers in the kernel.

I've done alot of development in my time and I've never needed to point at null.