Flaws found in BSD, Linux software updaters
The software update mechanisms used by most BSD and Linux operating systems can be tricked into installing buggy or known-to-be-compromised software on users' systems, creating serious security risks, according to new research.
The study Package Management Security, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the University of Arizona Tech Report, analysed 10 package managers and found that all were vulnerable to exploits, allowing attackers to install unsafe software on target systems.
Package managers are designed to automatically keep software up-to-date and thus safe from known vulnerabilities. The packages analysed in the study were APT, APT-RPM, Pacman, Portage, Ports, Slaktool, Stork, Urpmi, Yast and YUM.
"Given their critical role, the expectation would be for package managers to be extremely secure," said the researchers in the report. "We examined 10 popular package managers for Linux and BSD systems and found vulnerabilities in all of them."
The attacks outlined in the study could give an attacker the ability to read or erase files on the system, capture passwords, set up a backdoor into the system or carry out other malicious activity, the researchers said.
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