Root is just gravy

Posted Oct 17, 2006 7:29 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)
In reply to: Local root exploit in NVidia driver by rsidd
Parent article: Local root exploit in NVidia driver

> who is endangered by a local root exploit?
> Only multi-user machines with untrusted users.

Apparently a malicious web page can cause the X server to crash the
kernel by exploiting the nvidia driver bug, without even compromising the
browser first.

Web browsers and other network-connected applications run as local X
clients on most workstations. Compromise the browser and you've already
compromised the user. Root is just gravy.