One of the main Linux stories of the past week was the security vulnerability affecting a considerable range of Linux kernels. The vmsplice() system call, introduced into the kernel in version 2.6.17 (and further expanded in versions 2.6.23 and 2.6.24, which resulted in two additional vulnerabilities) was responsible for the problem. As a result of this code, an unprivileged user logged in to any of the systems running the vulnerable kernel could easily obtain root privileges by executing certain code (this is known as “privilege escalation exploit”). Millions of machines were affected.
Link: DistroWatch
