Linux admins who have enabled the unprivileged user namespace restriction in their recent Ubuntu environments should take action to close three new vulnerabilities that allow a threat actor to bypass the supposed protection.
This warning comes after researchers at Qualys found three different ways this hardening feature can, under certain circumstances, be bypassed.
“It needs to be addressed quickly,” said Robert Beggs, CEO of Canadian incident response firm DigitalDefence, which has several Ubuntu-based applications in its portfolio, “because it facilitates other exploits. By itself, not a major thing. But if something else comes out it can be chained to these [vulnerabilities] and cause a lot of damage.”