Category Archives: Linux

Glibc Dynamic Loader Hit By A Nasty Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

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A nasty vulnerability has been made public today concerning Glibc’s dynamic loader that can lead to full root privileges being obtained by local users. This affects Linux distributions of the past two years with the likes of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 23.04, Fedora 38, and others vulnerable to this local privilege escalation issue…

Source: Phoronix – Glibc Dynamic Loader Hit By A Nasty Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Intel Comes Up With A Way For Vulkan Sparse Support On Their Existing Linux Driver

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The biggest hindrance for using Intel Arc Graphics for Linux gaming has been the lack of Vulkan sparse support as needed for running many newer Windows DirectX 12 games atop Valve’s Steam Play with Proton using VKD3D-Proton. Intel recently did implement Vulkan sparse support for ANV in Mesa 23.3 but it only works with their yet-to-be-upstreamed and still-experimental Xe kernel driver. But now Intel Linux graphics driver engineers have managed to pull off a solution for getting the sparse resources supported while using the existing i915 kernel DRM driver…

Source: Phoronix – Intel Comes Up With A Way For Vulkan Sparse Support On Their Existing Linux Driver

A local root vulnerability in glibc

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Qualys has posted an
advisory for a vulnerability in the GNU C Library related to the
handling of the GLIBC_TUNABLES environment variable:

We successfully exploited this vulnerability and obtained full root
privileges on the default installations of Fedora 37 and 38, Ubuntu
22.04 and 23.04, Debian 12 and 13; other distributions are probably
also vulnerable and exploitable (one notable exception is Alpine
Linux, which uses musl libc, not the glibc).

Updates from distributors are beginning to appear and should be applied on
any systems with untrusted users.
The curious can see the fix applied to glibc in this
patch series.

Source: LWN.net – A local root vulnerability in glibc

X.Org Hit By New Security Vulnerabilities – Two Date Back To 1988 With X11R2

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It was a decade ago that a security researcher commented on X.Org Server security being even “worse than it looks” and that the GLX code for example was “80,000 lines of sheer terror” and hundreds of bugs being uncovered throughout the codebase. In 2023 new X.Org security vulnerabilities continue to be uncovered, two of which were made public today and date back to X11R2 code from the year 1988…

Source: Phoronix – X.Org Hit By New Security Vulnerabilities – Two Date Back To 1988 With X11R2

Richard Stallman Talks Red Hat, AI, and Ethical Software Licenses at GNU Birthday Event

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We should stop calling ChatGPT and other generative AI software “artificial intelligence,” according to Stallman, because “there’s nothing intelligent about them.”

The post Richard Stallman Talks Red Hat, AI, and Ethical Software Licenses at GNU Birthday Event appeared first on FOSS Force.



Source: FOSS Force – Richard Stallman Talks Red Hat, AI, and Ethical Software Licenses at GNU Birthday Event

How to Install TIG Stack (Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana) on Rocky Linux

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The TIG (Telegraf, InfluxDB and Grafana) Stack is an acronym for a platform of open-source tools to make the collection, storage, graphing and alerting of system metrics easier. You can monitor and visualize metrics such as memory, disk space, logged-in users, system load, swap usage, uptime, running processes etc. from one place.

Source: LXer – How to Install TIG Stack (Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana) on Rocky Linux

AMD Ryzen Powered Framework Laptop Linux Testing Held Up By BIOS Issue

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Today the review embargo lifts on the first AMD-powered Framework laptop. There’s one of the AMD Framework laptops in the lab for Linux testing and benchmarking but unfortunately no review for launch day due to being held up by a BIOS regression and thus unable to properly utilize accelerated graphics until a new BIOS revision is made available in the coming days…

Source: Phoronix – AMD Ryzen Powered Framework Laptop Linux Testing Held Up By BIOS Issue

Vulnerable Arm GPU drivers under active exploitation (ars technica)

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Ars technica reports
on an Arm advisory regarding exploitable vulnerabilities in a number of
its GPU drivers.

The most prevalent platform affected by the vulnerability is
Google’s line of Pixels, which are one of the only Android models
to receive security updates on a timely basis. Google patched
Pixels in its September update against the vulnerability, which is
tracked as CVE-2023-4211.

As the article notes, the story on fixes for other devices is less clear.

Source: LWN.net – Vulnerable Arm GPU drivers under active exploitation (ars technica)

AMD PMF Firmware Added To Linux-Firmware.Git For Smart PC Solution Builder

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As written about last month, AMD Linux engineers have been working on PMF Linux driver support for a “Smart PC Solutions Builder”. The AMD Smart PC Solutions Builder feature is intended to provide OEMs with more control over system power/performance policies. It looks like systems making use of this feature are already to the marketplace or imminent with AMD having already landed the PMF firmware…

Source: Phoronix – AMD PMF Firmware Added To Linux-Firmware.Git For Smart PC Solution Builder