Tag: launched

Linux procedure company bug gives root on all important distros, exploit launched

Audrey
Linux procedure company bug gives root on all important distros, exploit launched

Linux procedure company bug gives root on all important distros, exploit launched

A vulnerability in Polkit’s pkexec ingredient identified as CVE-2021-4034 (PwnKit) is existing in the default configuration of all big Linux distributions and can be exploited to gain full root privileges on the procedure, scientists alert nowadays.

CVE-2021-4034 has been named PwnKit and its origin has been tracked to the initial dedicate of pkexec, more than 12 years ago, indicating that all Polkit variations are influenced.

Part of the Polkit open up-source software framework that negotiates the conversation amongst privileged and unprivileged processes, pkexec allows an approved person to execute commands as a different user, doubling as an choice to sudo.

Straightforward to exploit, PoC envisioned shortly

Researchers at Qualys info protection firm found that the pkexec method could be applied by community attackers to raise privileges to root on default installations of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS.

They warn that PwnKit is probable exploitable on other Linux functioning techniques as perfectly.

Bharat Jogi, Director of Vulnerability and Danger Exploration at Qualys explains that PwnKit is “a memory corruption vulnerability in Polkit’s, which enables any unprivileged person to attain complete root privileges on a vulnerable system using default polkit configuration,”

The researcher notes that the problem has been hiding in basic sight due to the fact the to start with model of pkexec inn May well 2009. The video clip under demonstrates the exploitability of the bug:

Exploiting the flaw is so quick, the researchers say, that proof-of-principle (PoC) exploit code is anticipated to become general public in just a number of times. The Qualys Investigation Team will not release a PoC for PwnKit.

Update: An exploit has already emerged in the public room, fewer than 3 hours following Qualys released the complex particulars for PwnKit. BleepingComputer has compiled and examined the out there exploit, which proved to be reputable as it gave us root privileges on the system on all tries.

Stable PwnKit exploit gives root privileges to unprivileged user
supply: BleepingComputer

Referrinng to the exploit, CERT/CC vulnerability analyst Will Dormann claimed that it is each simple and common. The researcher additional tested it on an ARM64 technique, showing that it is effective on that architecture, way too.

Qualys described the protection challenge responsibly on November 18, 2021, and waited for a patch to develop into available prior to publishing the technical particulars behind PwnKit.

The organization strongly endorses directors prioritize making use of the patches that Polkit’s authors produced on their GitLab a few of several hours back.

Linux distros had accessibility to the patch a couple of weeks ahead of today’s coordinated disclosure from Qualys and are expected to launch updated pkexec deals starting currently.

Ubuntu has currently pushed updates for PolicyKit to handle the vulnerability in versions 14.04 and 16.04 ESM (extended security maintenance) as well as in more recent versions 18.04, 20.04, and 21.04. Customers just need to have to operate a regular system update and then reboot the personal computer for the variations to take outcome.

Purple Hat has also sent a security update for polkit on Workstation and on Enterprise products

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How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity’s technological revolution

Audrey
How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity’s technological revolution

For the first few million years of human evolution, technologies changed slowly. Some three million years ago, our ancestors were making chipped stone flakes and crude choppers. Two million years ago, hand-axes. A million years ago, primitive humans sometimes used fire, but with difficulty. Then, 500,000 years ago, technological change accelerated, as spearpoints, firemaking, axes, beads and bows appeared.

This technological revolution wasn’t the work of one people. Innovations arose in different groups – modern Homo sapiens, primitive sapiens, possibly even Neanderthals – and then spread. Many key inventions were unique: one-offs. Instead of being invented by different people independently, they were discovered once, then shared. That implies a few clever people created many of history’s big inventions.

And not all of them were modern humans.

The tip of the spear

500,000 years ago in southern Africa, primitive Homo sapiens first bound stone blades to wooden spears, creating the spearpoint. Spearpoints were revolutionary as weaponry, and as the first “composite tools” – combining components.

Image of a Serengeti spearpoint.
Serengeti spearpoint.
Nick Longrich, Author provided

The spearpoint spread, appearing 300,000 years ago in East Africa and the Mideast, then 250,000 years ago in Europe, wielded by Neanderthals. That pattern suggests the spearpoint was gradually passed on from one people to another, all the way from Africa to Europe.

Catching fire

400,000 years ago hints of fire, including charcoal and burnt bones, became common in Europe, the Mideast and Africa. It happened roughly the same time everywhere – rather than randomly in disconnected places – suggesting invention, then rapid spread. Fire’s utility is obvious, and keeping a fire going is easy. Starting a fire is harder, however, and was probably the main barrier. If so, widespread use of fire likely marked the invention of the fire-drill – a stick spun against another piece of wood to create friction, a tool still used today by hunter-gatherers.

Image of a Hadzabe fire drill.
Hadzabe fire drill.
Nick Longrich, Author provided

Curiously, the oldest evidence for regular fire use comes from Europe – then inhabited by Neanderthals. Did Neanderthals master fire first? Why not? Their brains were as big as ours; they used them for something, and living through Europe’s ice-age winters, Neanderthals needed fire more than African Homo sapiens.

The axe

270,000 years ago in central Africa, hand-axes began to disappear, replaced by a new technology, the core-axe. Core-axes looked like small, fat hand-axes, but were radically different tools. Microscopic scratches show core-axes were bound to wooden handles – making a true, hafted axe. Axes quickly spread through Africa, then were carried by modern humans into the Arabian peninsula, Australia, and ultimately Europe.

Ornamentation

The oldest beads are 140,000 years old, and come from Morocco. They were made by piercing snail shells, then stringing them on a cord. At the time, archaic Homo sapiens inhabited North Africa, so their makers weren’t modern humans.

Image Kondoa beads.
Kondoa beads.
Nick Longrich, Author provided

Beads then appeared in Europe, 115,000-120,000 years

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