Capabilities for loading network modules

Posted Mar 7, 2011 22:28 UTC (Mon) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474)
Parent article: Capabilities for loading network modules

I may be missing what the security hole is ... Just that the attacker can use a bit of non-swappable memory by loading random modules?

Capabilities for loading network modules

Posted Mar 7, 2011 23:02 UTC (Mon) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (1 responses)

> Just that the attacker can use a bit of non-swappable memory by
> loading random modules?

No, the idea is that there may be kernel modules with vulnerabilities that aren't normally loaded, which might make an admin somewhat lax about updating them. If an attacker can load arbitrary modules (even just those in the approved /lib/modules location), it increases the attack surface of the running kernel.

jake

Capabilities for loading network modules

Posted Mar 8, 2011 7:38 UTC (Tue) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link]

Ah that makes sense, thanks.