New 'Looney Tunables' Linux bug gives root on major distros
New 'Looney Tunables' Linux bug gives root on major distros
From BeepingComputer.
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Sometimes I wonder if vulnerability research teams do more harm than good. This vulnerability became possible due to a commit in 2021, but no one has seen it exploited before. But, now that it's been widely announced, it "creates" a new surface vector for malicious actors to attack that previously wouldn't have been known to exist.
That being said, I know that more sophisticated attackers have entire arsenals of vulnerabilities not yet publicly discovered that they keep close to their chest, and this could've been one of them. Cybersecurity is an exhausting field.
Typically there's a period of responsible disclosure to give the software maintainer an opportunity to fix it before it's widely announced. After that period is up or the fix has been released the vulnerability discoverer is able to announce it and take credit for finding it.
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Qualys and Red Hat are pretty big names, so they'd be likely to follow the typical process.
Distro developers were notified a month ago. At least Redhat and Debian have have published fixed versions. This is common procedure.
Security through obscurity is never good.
It's better that vulnerabilities be discussed openly. In general, people knowing the truth allows them to make better decisions.
It's not only the good guys that find vulnerabilities. There're many states and companies (selling to those governments) as well as regular criminal organizations paying people for vulnerabilities and exploits.
If the issue wasn't reported, it is likely that it would have been found by someone else at some point. It might even be known already, but just not reported.