SeaCat Application Security Technology Is Not Impacted by the Dirty Cow Issue (CVE-2016-5195)

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The new vulnerability, DirtyCOW, (CVE-2016-5195) exploits a flaw in private read-only memory mappings. However, this critical impact vulnerability has existed in Linux for nine years and only got discovered recently.

DirtyCOW allows applications and users to elevate user rights and gain unlimited access to the operating system. Millions of Linux installations are vulnerable including many Android phones because Android was built on Linux.

This vulnerability is caused by a breakage of read-only memory mapping in a copy-on-write (COW) process. Although DirtyCOW can only be exploited locally, the risk is very high because there are many available working exploits on the Internet.

Recommendation:

The fix for this vulnerability only makes a small change in the copy-on-write processing, and already available for all the main Linux distributions.

If you are sure that you uses only approved applications installed on the server, and no other user has access to this server, you are probably not susceptible to data loss. Otherwise, your data can be lost or stolen. Please be aware that your system log does not register a successful exploitation of the DirtyCow.

In all cases, it's extremely importantly to apply the patch. If you'd like assistance or have any question please contact support@teskalabs.com. Alternatively, look at our documentation to know more about SeaCat application security.

Reference:

1. https://dirtycow.ninja/