Displaying items by tag: dirty cow

A serious vulnerability in the Linux kernel has been announced, with the researcher who discovered and reported it saying it "allows overwriting data in arbitrary read-only files. This leads to privilege escalation because unprivileged processes can inject code into root processes".

A script that mines for cryptocurrencies on Linux systems first needs to infect these systems, either by using brute force to guess SSH passwords or else by gaining entry through the use of stolen credentials that can be bought on dark web forums.

A privilege-escalation bug in the Linux kernel, that could allow any application to gain root-level access and take over a device, has been present in the kernel since version 2.6.22 which was released in 2007.