RDS Protocol Bug Creates a Linux Kernel Hole, Now Fixed

Trailrunner7 writes "The open-source Linux operating system contains a serious security flaw that can be exploited to gain superuser rights on a target system. The vulnerability, in the Linux implementation of the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol, affects unpatched versions of the Linux kernel, starting from 2.6.30, where the RDS protocol was first included." The article goes on to say, though, that "Linux installations are only vulnerable if the CONFIG_RDS kernel configuration option is set, and if there are no restrictions on unprivileged users loading packet family modules, as is the case on most stock distributions," and that Linus Torvalds has committed a fix.

Comments

Re:Note to linux devs

[Meshach]

If you release early and you release often, you will release a big piece of sh^H^H code with a lot of bugs.

Funny how Microsoft releases late and releases seldom and has the same problem...

Re:A local exploit only

[tlhIngan]

They should mention in the summary this is a local privilege escalation exploit only.

Local exploits become remote exploits througha vulnerable service or bad passwords. Just because something can only be done locally means nothing. It just means all I need to do is gain any sort of access then use the exploit. Instant root. And all I needed was just the ability to run a bit of my code. Or if I've previously gotten access in but not used it because running things as "nobody" isn't terribly useful, now with the ability to get root makes it very useful.

It's the same sort of thing that let that jailbreakme.com thing work - Safari downloads a PDF, the PDF display code tries to display it and fails, and runs the exploit code. Exploit code runs as Safari, uses a priviledge escalation hole to get root access, then does lal the jailbreak stuff as root.