Linux Troubles

[GhostShip]

With many of the new DDOS attack engines being powered by Linux based equipment,  this story is worth a read to fill in some of the blanks.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/03/ubuntu_core_snaps_door_shut_on_new_dirty_cows/

Dirty COW has surfaced after nine years in Linux, since kernel 2.6.22, permitting malicious code access to Linux systems including Android smart phones.
Before that, the headline grabber was Shellshock, which exploited a decades-old vulnerability that attacked the program used to execute command lines and scripts in Unix-based systems.

Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical founder and Ubuntu daddy, told The Reg: "We always saw Windows as the vulnerable platform but now old Linux devices are seen as the real vulnerability.. Snaps targets IoT (Internet  of things) from items like cameras to network routers.

Canonical will aggregate updates in Snaps with code downloaded to a device.

Whilst this new solution makes great sense for the future where does it leave the millions of items vulnerable to the exposed flaw ?
Also in many places folks are assuming such flaws to be windows based and as we can see that's clearly not the case here, let us hope further solutions are proposed to back-fill the scope and range of equipment currently exploitable.
 

[White Stripes]

IoT is a bad idea to begin with -- with little to no updates for these products...

[GhostShip]

I agree on the stupidity behind IOT, to facilitate remote access to nearly everything even stuff that has no need of the internet is pretty much setting everyone up for a fall and at the same time providing the biggest set of data gathering tools the NSA and their ilk could ever wish for, whatever happened to privacy ?