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Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

damnvulnerablelinux.org

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Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#3

Post by pjscott »

sliverstorm wrote: post #2

> Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable operating system ever! Wait, they topped Windows 95 and Windows ME? Is that even possible?

I love how, on those OSes, you could freeze the whole thing solid with a three-byte program:

   cli   # clears interrupts
   loop: goto loop
This ballooned to a colossal four bytes if you put it in an EXE file, of course.

Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#5

Post by yesimahuman »

pjscott wrote: post #3
sliverstorm wrote: post #2

> Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable operating system ever! Wait, they topped Windows 95 and Windows ME? Is that even possible?

I love how, on those OSes, you could freeze the whole thing solid with a three-byte program: cli # clears interrupts loop: goto loop This ballooned to a colossal four bytes if you put it in an EXE file, of course.

Technically speaking, how would an OS avoid that issue, without breaking compatibility (unless that is acceptable)?

Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#6

Post by mahmud »

pjscott wrote: post #3
sliverstorm wrote: post #2

> Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable operating system ever! Wait, they topped Windows 95 and Windows ME? Is that even possible?

I love how, on those OSes, you could freeze the whole thing solid with a three-byte program: cli # clears interrupts loop: goto loop This ballooned to a colossal four bytes if you put it in an EXE file, of course.

You could do it from debug.com but that one doesn't have labels, so you will need to use an explicit jmp.

  C:\hack\lisp\cl-gdata\base>debug
  -a
  13EA:0100 cli
  13EA:0101 jmp 101
  13EA:0103
  -g 0100

Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#7

Post by mahmud »

yesimahuman wrote: post #5
pjscott wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how, on those OSes, you could freeze the whole thing solid with a three-byte program: cli # clears interrupts loop: goto loop This ballooned to a colossal four bytes if you put it in an EXE file, of course.

Technically speaking, how would an OS avoid that issue, without breaking compatibility (unless that is acceptable)?

You can't be bug compatible for things that violate the processor's protection protocol. Access to certain bits of the EFLAGS register is unavailable to unprivileged code. In fact. Just because you were allowed to raid and pillage by Microsoft for a few years doesn't mean it's the norm.

Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#9

Post by pavs »

mahmud wrote: post #8

Securing this beast should serve as a nice training course for any sysadmin; bonus points if you start handing out shell accounts to anonymous people in certain neighborhoods of EFNet.

Just update packages to the latest, patched version. What so difficult about it?

Re: Damn Vulnerable Linux - The most vulnerable and exploitable distro

#10

Post by mahmud »

pavs wrote: post #9
mahmud wrote: post #8

Securing this beast should serve as a nice training course for any sysadmin; bonus points if you start handing out shell accounts to anonymous people in certain neighborhoods of EFNet.

Just update packages to the latest, patched version. What so difficult about it?

If this is based on a popular distro, maybe; but if you wanted to loosen up a Linux box, you can build a freak from pieces that no one would find lineage for, much less a repo.
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