It feels like a terrible horrible no good bad month for Linux :(
These kind of exploits have always been common. The only thing that changed is people talking about them.
This is a really good point.
Remember that Microsoft has patch Tuesday... so... it's now just normal mundane patching. No sensationalism, no logos, no catchy names.
But we don't know what's going on in there.
Linux is now getting more news because more people are hammering it with AI, but we should hear that each item is being fixed and / or worked around with open discussions.
I fell it's going to be a bad couple of months for everybody, not just Linux. It's just with open source, it's easier for the LLMs to find things that have been missed. And more open when they do because you can see the bug reports.
On the bright side though I think security is an afterthought and it needs to be the default on internet facing software.
That a hacker hasn’t bothered to look except the lowest hanging sql injections isn’t enough.
And, I know vibe coding gets a deserved bad rap, but you can ask an AI to test out your security or point out obvious holes you might not know to look for.
Really?
I thought it's great, since those exploits didn't just come from thin air. It would be bad if someone got their hands on a zero-day and managed to do something catastrophic, like shutting down airports, or blowing up a power plant.
Also, it's not like they're losing money over this.
How many of these security news stories are largely exaggerated by Redmond and its affiliated outlets?
I think it’s best to read the actual docs published by the research when available. News tells some, but I have seen it sensationalized a few times, where it only affects x kernel with y module before update z.
That being said, these are seemingly getting more and more frequent as previously noted.
Actually, you don't even need Redmond in the equation, just normal media shenanigans. Doomsday warnings sell more ~~newspapers~~ ad impressions than "Minor security issue here, patch when available."
The last couple were pretty serious. Just because local privilege escalations are pretty common doesn't mean they aren't bad.
How is this a backdoor if it requires being able to install custom PAM modules???
First, you break into the house, then you install an invisible backdoor, and then you can come and go freely.
It's a "post-exploit" tool. It's the persistent backdoor you install after you break in. It survives reboots, unlike most exploits.
ah I guess that's exactly what a backdoor is. I read the headline and thought security vulnerability or privilege escalation.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that just PAM being PAM?
If it was backdoor that means someone created it maliciously or it is bug?
It is a tool to establish persistente after the server is already hacked. This isn't a way to break into a server.
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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