this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Is it new or is it newly discovered?

Since it is open source... I guess we can rule out an intentional back door.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Since it is open source… I guess we can rule out an intentional back door.

Well, once upon a time I would have agreed with you but the xz backdoor changed my mind on that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I dunno, I'd slow your roll on that. Hanlon's razor came to notoriety in the field of computer science for a reason. I've done software dev professionally for over ten years now and you wouldn't believe the stupid shit I've seen people write. The only thing that sucks more than a computer is the human writing software for it.

For those unfamiliar, here's Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

EDIT: After a quick look at the CVEs, this definitely sounds like a big ol' fuckup. It sounds like there might be some unsafe defaults in polkit as well?

EDIT: Here's the report from the actual researchers which is MUCH more cogent than OP's article: https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/06/17/4

It's chaining two separate oopsies together. This overview on GitHub also provides more details about the libblockdev side of things: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mpgj-hch9-5rvx

Specifically, this section:

However, a local attacker can create a specially crafted XFS image containing a SUID-root shell, then trick udisks into resizing it. This mounts their malicious filesystem with root privileges, allowing them to execute their SUID-root shell and gain complete control of the system.

That really doesn't sound like something intentional to me. That sounds like a HUGE oopsy-woopsy fucky-wucky, to get technical about it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not saying I think it was malicious, just that I'd no longer assume it wasn't

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