Could a Worm on Mac or Linux Ever Get Traction?
Will we ever see something like the Sasser worm for the Macintosh (news - web sites) or Linux (news - web sites)? It's an interesting question, and not just for academic reasons. Undoubtedly, many people who choose these platforms do so because they think it immunizes them from the sorts of attacks Windows users must deal with. This past week saw the announcement of several vulnerabilities in Mac OS X (news - web sites), some extremely serious. The first, a heap overflow in QuickTime reported by eEye, could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code in the context of the user running the QuickTime player.
The eEye advisory takes Apple Computer Inc. to task for understating the importance of the bug—for which Apple has supplied a patch—and for the obviousness of the vulnerability. Indeed, based on developer documentation cited by eEye, it sure quacks like a heap overflow.
A far scarier vulnerability was reported by @stake Inc. It's a remotely exploitable stack-based buffer overflow that could allow a user to execute arbitrary code as the root user.
This could be the big one. Based on this, you really could build a Sasser-type worm, one that travels from computer to computer without the user having to do anything stupid such as launch an attachment. The whole thing could happen at night while you're asleep.
