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Linux
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Written by Daniel
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Friday, 17 April 2009 11:14 |
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A researcher at Black Hat Europe this week will demonstrate a more stealthy way to hack Linux
Apr 14, 2009 | 04:21 PM
By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading
Kernel rootkits are tough enough to detect, but a researcher this week has demonstrated an even sneakier method of hacking Linux.
The attack attack exploits an oft-forgotten function in Linux versions 2.4 and above in order to quietly insert a rootkit into the operating system kernel as a way to hide malware processes, hijack system calls, and open remote backdoors into the machine, for instance. At Black Hat Europe this week in Amsterdam, Anthony Lineberry, senior software engineer for Flexilis, will demonstrate how to hack the Linux kernel by exploiting the driver interface to physically addressable memory in Linux, called /dev/mem.
"One of bonuses of this [approach] is that most kernel module rootkits make a lot noise when they are inserting [the code]. This one is directly manipulating" the memory, so it's less noticeable, he says.
The /dev/mem "device" can be opened like a file, and you can read and write to it like a text file, Lineberry says. It's normally used for debugging the kernel, for instance. [Comments...] |
