Local root exploit in NVidia driver

Posted Oct 17, 2006 10:15 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Local root exploit in NVidia driver by job
Parent article: Local root exploit in NVidia driver

Yes exactly.

It's trivial to 'comprimise' a user account by tricking them to run a malicious program. A Linux virus is rare, but it's not difficult to make and easy to embed into existing binaries.

Even a simple bash script can nail a user.

However it's easy to recover from something like that. You just log in as root and bingo! you can find and delete the programs very easily. Nothing is safe from root.

If push comes to shove:
rm -rf /home/luser
will do nicely.

However if you add on top of that a local root exploit... Then all of a sudden the best course of action to recover the machine is to format and reinstall.

And I am dead serious about it. It's possible to find a uninstall a root kit, but it's not possible to know everything they did to your computer. It's not worth the time and hassle it would take to clean out a machine. Format and reinstall is the best answer to a compromised machine with a local root hole.