Ubuntu's Crash Report Tool Allows Remote Code Execution
Dec 16, 2016
No software is immune to being Hacked! Not even Linux. A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Ubuntu Linux operating system that would allow an attacker to remotely compromise a target computer using a malicious file. The vulnerability affects all default Ubuntu Linux installations versions 12.10 (Quantal) and later. Researcher Donncha O'Cearbhaill discovered the security bug which actually resides in the Apport crash reporting tool on Ubuntu. A successful exploit of this CrashDB code injection issue could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on victim's machine. All an attacker needs is to trick the Ubuntu user into opening a maliciously booby-trapped crash file. This would inject malicious code in Ubuntu OS's crash file handler, which when parsed, executes arbitrary Python code. "The code first checks if the CrashDB field starts with { indicating the start of a Python dictionary," O'Cearbhaill explain...
