Someone help claraify a few things.....

[MoonRise]

Please help me with this article. It says: "A malicious authenticated client ". Exactly what method of Authentication are they saying? It would have to be local, correct??

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7158/1/

[dibl]

Re: Someone help claraify a few things.....

It must mean "an inside job".

Only valid users could run the X server in the first place, right? So it's a vulnerability to bad boys who are already able to log in, just not necessarily with root privileges. I'm not impressed with this one -- might as well say "Linux is vulnerable to an employee with a pair of wire cutters and a bad attitude."

[MoonRise]

Re: Someone help claraify a few things.....

I agree and that is what I thought. Very bad Article. Reminiscent of another supposed Linux Vulnerability that wasn't.

[Zhao]

Re: Someone help claraify a few things.....

I'm glad to read it's just another Linux FUD article.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Someone help claraify a few things.....

I'm glad to read it's just another Linux FUD article.

Well I guess in order to get people to read these things one has to take the sensational approach. Anyway, there are two kinds of vulnerabilities. Those that result in harm to real world systems and those that don't. I'll take notice when I hear of a successful exploit.

The funny thing is that open source always gets picked on because it is possible to see the code. Yet despite that, no one has bothered to take advantage of this "vulnerability" for five years. To my mind then, either it was not of interest or it wasn't a vulnerability until now. If it was closed source it probably could have sat there for ever.