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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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Root access vulnerability in glibc library impacts many Linux distros (securityaffairs.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 150 points 10 months ago (2 children)

For your convenience:

The researchers pointed out that the vulnerability cannot be exploited remotely. An attacker can trigger the issue by providing crafted inputs to applications that employ these [syslog] logging functions [in apps that allow the user to feed crafted data to those functions].

This is a privilege escalation.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The hero we need."; DROP TABLE "users";

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

If it isn't little Bobby Tables again.

[–] atzanteol 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This may be difficult to exploit in practice - I don't think most user applications use syslog.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Unless you have user access to a system with gcc on it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

You still need some privileged process to exploit. Glibc code doesn't get any higher privileges than the rest of the process. From kernel's point of view, it's just a part of the program like any other code.

So if triggering the bug in your own process was enough for privilege escalation, it would also be a critical security vulnerability in the kernel - it can't allow you to execute a magic sequence of instructions in your process and become a root, that completely destroys any semblance of process / user isolation.