Tag Archives: Linux

A GCC -fstack-protector vulnerability on arm64

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The GCC stack-protector feature detects stack-based buffer overruns by
putting a canary value on the stack and noticing if that value is changed.
It
turns out, though, that dynamically allocated local variables (such as
variable-length arrays and space obtained with alloca()) are
placed beyond the canary, so overflows of those variables will not be
detected. As a result, arm64 binaries built with vulnerable versions of
GCC are not as protected as they should be and need to be rebuilt.

Dynamic allocations are just as susceptible to overflows as other
locals. In fact, they’re arguably more susceptible because they’re
almost always arrays, whereas fixed locals are often integers,
pointers, or other types to which variable-length data is never
written. GCC’s own heuristics for when to use a stack guard reflect
this.

Kees Cook, meanwhile, has pointed out that
the kernel no longer uses variable-length arrays, so kernel builds should
not be affected by this vulnerability.

Source: LWN.net – A GCC -fstack-protector vulnerability on arm64

[$] Arduino: open source for microcontroller boards

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Arduino has emerged as one of the
prime success stories of the open-hardware movement. In recent years, the
company has shifted its focus toward Internet of Things (IoT)
applications. As part of this transformation, it has completely redesigned
its open-source integrated development environment (IDE), adding a more
professional feature set for its hobbyist target audience. If you have
experimented with Arduino in the past, but have lost track of its
progress, now might be a good time to give it another try.

Source: LWN.net – [$] Arduino: open source for microcontroller boards

Password-stealing Linux malware served for 3 years and no one noticed (Ars Technica)

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Ars Technica reports on a credential-stealing Trojan horse that would infect only some of those who installed the “Free Download Manager”. The article is based on a Kaspersky report that details the malicious payload offered up at that site from 2020 to 2022.

The site, freedownloadmanager[.]org, offered a benign version of a Linux offering known as the Free Download Manager. Starting in 2020, the same domain at times redirected users to the domain deb.fdmpkg[.]org, which served a malicious version of the app. The version available on the malicious domain contained a script that downloaded two executable files to the /var/tmp/crond and /var/tmp/bs file paths. The script then used the cron job scheduler to cause the file at /var/tmp/crond to launch every 10 minutes. With that, devices that had installed the booby-trapped version of Free Download Manager were permanently backdoored.



Source: LWN.net – Password-stealing Linux malware served for 3 years and no one noticed (Ars Technica)

Setting Up NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit in a Docker Container on Debian/Ubuntu

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Harnessing the power of NVIDIA GPUs on Debian and Ubuntu systems often requires navigating a maze of configurations and dependencies. NVIDIA’s CUDA Toolkit, essential for GPU-accelerated tasks, can simplify this with Docker. By containerizing the toolkit, developers ensure a consistent, streamlined, and optimized environment across systems. In this guide, we’ll detail the steps to seamlessly integrate the CUDA Toolkit within a Docker container for these popular Linux distributions.

Source: LXer – Setting Up NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit in a Docker Container on Debian/Ubuntu

Slowroll: openSUSE’s New Take on the Rolling Release Model

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Currently an experimental project, Slowroll is a hybrid distro that seeks to meld the stability of a fixed release distro like openSUSE Leap with the advantages of a rolling release like openSUSE Tumbleweed.

The post Slowroll: openSUSE’s New Take on the Rolling Release Model appeared first on FOSS Force.



Source: FOSS Force – Slowroll: openSUSE’s New Take on the Rolling Release Model

Development MCU Platform Supports Swift

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Today, Crowdsupply featured the SwiftIO Micro, a compact development board designed for programming in the Swift language. This board provides up to 44 IO pins with support for various interfaces. Additionally, it offers detailed guides and demo projects to help newcomers get started with ease. The SwiftIO Micro is powered by the NXP RT1062 microcontroller […]

Source: LXer – Development MCU Platform Supports Swift