Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher at Google, ported the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, released in 1988, to work on Linux. This was done out of curiosity, three years before Linux itself emerged. The port was based on a reworking of the executable files for UNIX, found in a warez archive on one of the BBS. This porting is interesting because […]
A library named pymafka containing malicious code has been identified in the PyPI (Python Package Index). The library was distributed under a name similar to the popular package pykafka, intending to trick inattentive users into confusing the substitute package with the main project (typosquatting). The malicious package was posted on May 17 and was downloaded 325 times before it was blocked. Inside the package, there was a 'setup.py' script that defined […]
After five months of development, the release of the system manager systemd 251 has been announced. Key changes include: enhanced system requirements. The minimum supported version of the Linux kernel has increased from 3.13 to 4.15. The presence of the CLOCK_BOOTTIME timer is required for operation. A compiler supporting the C11 standard and GNU extensions is needed for building (the C89 standard continues to be used for header files). An experimental utility, systemd-sysupdate, has been added for automatic […]
In the repository where the development of Ubuntu 22.10 is taking place, there has been a transition to the use of the PipeWire multimedia server as the default for audio processing. Packages related to PulseAudio have been removed from the desktop and desktop-minimal sets, and to ensure compatibility, a working layer over PipeWire, called pipewire-pulse, has been added instead of the libraries for interacting with PulseAudio, which allows all existing PulseAudio clients to continue functioning. […]
A vulnerability (CVE-2022-1729) has been identified in the Linux kernel, allowing a local user to gain root access to the system. The vulnerability is caused by a race condition in the perf subsystem, which can be exploited to initiate access to a previously freed area of kernel memory (use-after-free). The issue manifests starting from kernel release 4.0-rc1. The exploitability has been confirmed for releases 5.4.193 and above. A fix is currently only available in the form of a patch. The risk of the vulnerability […]
An experimental release of the open implementation of WinAPI — Wine 7.9 has occurred. Since the release of version 7.8, 35 bug reports have been closed and 323 changes have been made. The most important changes include: The migration of the macOS driver to use the PE (Portable Executable) format instead of ELF. Work has been done to resolve crashes during the execution of tests (‘make test’) on the Windows platform. Closed […]
After a year of development, the release of the functional programming language Erlang 25 has taken place, aimed at the development of distributed fault-tolerant applications that provide real-time parallel request processing. The language has gained popularity in areas such as telecommunications, banking systems, e-commerce, computer telephony, and instant messaging organization. At the same time, the OTP 25 (Open Telecom Platform) release, a complementary set of libraries, has been launched. […]
The Apache Software Foundation has released the Apache OpenMeetings 6.3 web conferencing server, which allows for audio and video conferencing via the web, as well as collaboration and messaging among participants. It supports both webinars with a single speaker and conferences with an arbitrary number of participants interacting simultaneously. The project's code is written in Java and is distributed under […]
Corrective releases of Firefox 100.0.2, Firefox ESR 91.9.1, and Thunderbird 91.9.1 have been published, addressing two vulnerabilities assessed as critical. During the ongoing Pwn2Own 2022 competition, a working exploit was demonstrated, allowing an attacker to bypass sandbox isolation and execute code on the system by opening a specially crafted page. The exploit's author has been awarded a prize of $100,000. The first vulnerability (CVE-2022-1802) […]
Google has announced the opening of specifications and a reference implementation for the PSP (PSP Security Protocol), used for encrypting traffic between data centers. The protocol employs a traffic encapsulation architecture similar to IPsec ESP (Encapsulating Security Payloads) over IP, providing encryption, cryptographic integrity checks, and source authentication. The implementation code for PSP is written in C and is released under the Apache 2.0 license. […]
Mozilla has announced the start of testing for the third version of the Chrome manifest in Firefox, which defines the capabilities and resources available for extensions created using the WebExtensions API. To test the third version of the manifest in the Firefox 101 beta, set the parameter 'extensions.manifestV3.enabled' to true and 'xpinstall.signatures.required' to false on the about:config page. To install extensions, […]
Red Hat has announced the availability of installation images and repositories for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 distribution. The release of the new branch was officially announced a week ago, but the builds were published with a slight delay. The source texts of rpm packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 are available in the CentOS Git repository. Ready-to-use installation images are only available for registered Red Hat users […]