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I just wanted to pass along a nasty hole in the Linux kernel. It effects every 2.2 kernel version except the latest, and all of 2.4. If someone has a local shell, they can use it to gain root priviledges. There's no known way to exploit it via the network only.
Red Hat and EnGuard have already released updated kernels. Debian seems slow, probably because the patches for generic kernels seem finicky or broken. Even worse, a sample exploit has been released, apparently a few months ago to boot.
I've been testing the exploit, and noticed it doesn't always work. One machine with Gentoo's 2.4.19 wasn't effected, but a minorly patched 2.4.20 kernel caved in. My best guess is that the grsecurity patch in the 2.4.19 kernel solved the problem, or made it different enough to just not work.
References: Alan Cox's announcement, and resulting discussion: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&th=71e0a576dcca614f&rnum=1
grsecurity's homepage: http://www.grsecurity.net/
HJ Hornbeck
PS. One more tidbit. If you're sick of managing kernel patches, try WOLK. It's a collection of a few hundred patches for the stock kernel, rolled up as one: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wolk
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