We’re about halfway through Security Awareness Month, and we have another security vulnerability to report for Linux users.
The Hacker News recently reported a flaw that was discovered in the “sudo” utility, which is installed on most popular Linux distributions and allows administrators of a computer to run commands as the root user without changing desktop sessions. The flaw in question could allow a hacker to bypass security policies in place on the computer to run commands without proper authorization.
It has also been reported that this vulnerability is really only possible in very specific configurations. However, it is still essential to stay on top of these reports and to install security updates on your computer as soon as possible. This writer has checked two Linux devices – one running Ubuntu and the other running Linux Mint – and a patched version of sudo was already available for installation, so most Debian-based flavors of Linux should now have the update available.
If you are concerned about your Linux PC being affected, simply run your distribution’s default package manager’s update function (here’s info on Ubuntu and Fedora as examples) to see if a patch is ready!
updated for ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (November 12, 2018)
My name is Guillermo Vasquez, and I’m a natural researcher, a technology enthusiast, and an amateur photographer. I’m also a Linux professional and a cyber-security expert with specializations that include ethical hacking and technology forensics investigation. I was born to a loving family of farmers in the heart of Chihuahua, Mexico. I consider Linux to be my first language. 