Saturday, December 19, 2015

Log into most any Linux system by hitting backspace 28 times

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Security researchers have discovered a ludicrously simple way to hack into a number of Linux distributions: Just tap the backspace key 28 times in a row. A team from the Cybersecurity Group at Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain found that doing so for builds utilizing the ubiquitous Grub2 bootloader -- that's to say just about all of them -- immediately bypasses the lock screen, initiates the "Grub rescue shell" and grants the user access to the system for whatever nefarious .
The team found that the backspace trick triggers a memory error, which in turn launches the rescue shell. The bug isn't a huge threat -- I mean, a hacker would need physical access to your machine in order to exploit it -- especially now that UbuntuRed Hat, and Debian all have released patches.

About the Author

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I generally blog between 5:30 A.M. and 7 A.M. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.

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