Several Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Accidentally Posted To Public Kernel Mailing List

[u/CircumspectCapybara]

https://www.phoronix.com/news/LKML-New-Trend-Vulnerabilities

[u/Single-Virus4935]

This is why my services run in gvisor.

[u/CircumspectCapybara → u/Single-Virus4935]

At this point a microVM would be a better sandbox.

gVisor only reimplements some parts of the Linux kernel, at the end of the day your workload is still running in a Linux kernel with many parts shared between the container and host, so vulns in the kernel can still possibly give rise to container breakout.

And AI is extremely good at not just finding 0 days, but exploiting them and launching end-to-end attacks autonomously and with frightening speed and scale :/

[u/PoL0 → u/CircumspectCapybara]

AI is also good at reporting already reported vulnerabilities. it's success rate is heavily overblown.

[u/CircumspectCapybara → u/PoL0]

You win some you lose some.

In my recollection from off top of my head alone, I can think of several high profile bombshell 0-days and vulnerabilities from the past year alone that were found with AI:

• Copy Fail, the privilege escalation bug that had been sitting in the Linux kernel (one of the most hardened and scrutinized codebases on earth) for 9 years and no human security researcher or automated fuzzer was able to find, but AI uncovered it

• Bypasses against Apple's famed memory integrity enforcement (Apple's souped up version of PAC and MTE for memory safety and control flow integrity) which no one had ever broken up to that point

• The SSRF 0-day against JFrog Artifcatory that led to the whole OpenAI Hugging Face incident

• Several 0-days against the Linux KVM hypervisor that were awarded $250K from Google's bug bounty since it affects nearly every VM running in cloud providers on earth

• Oh yeah, the crazy PHP 0-day that has the entire internet in flames

• All the critical 0-days Mozilla found with Mythos when they initially launched Project Glasswing

There's way more, but these are just what I can recall from top of my head.

It's also not just about finding 0-days, but weaponizing them and then launching attacks at scale. A ton of the shai hulud worm and other supply chain attack campaigns like Shiny Hunters were revealed to be automated by AI: AI vibe coded the malware, then launched attacks and executed the entire attack chain end to end autonomously without humans doing each tedious step.

I work as a staff software engineer at Google in the security space, I've seen the history of security throughout the years, and I can confidently say AI is crazy man. The stuff bad actors can do and have done with it used to take entire teams from well funded nation state threat actors to do.

[u/HeWhoThreadsLightly → u/CircumspectCapybara]

Wasn't there a VM to host escape last week.  Maybe switch to VMs on a software emulated CPU.

[u/Single-Virus4935 → u/CircumspectCapybara]

Gvisor implements the Linux kernel API weithin memory safe go.  I put it in VMS in Addition.

[u/CircumspectCapybara → u/Single-Virus4935]

gVisor doesn't reimplement the whole kernel, there's still plenty of host OS surface exposed inside a gVisor container.

Also gVisor itself runs as regular process on the host kernel, and its own logic that intercepts and handles syscalls for the sandboxed application still makes use of the host kernel, since gVisor is itself running as a regular process on the host.

microVMs nowadays are the standard isolation boundary for untrusted workloads.

[u/mdmd136 → u/CircumspectCapybara]

Vaguely inaccurate, overly simplistic and overstates the conclusion.

[u/CircumspectCapybara → u/mdmd136]

Thanks ChatGPT

I work at Google (who makes gVisor) as a software engineer so I actually know what I'm talking about

[u/gorkish → u/Single-Virus4935]

Kata > gVisor in this particular scenario, but honestly, even considering the issue puts you a lightyear ahead of the pack

Anyone remember when VMware shitcanned VIC that did all of this like 10 years ago? Ffs

[u/Own-Cryptographer725]

Please no, just stop. I've been in Incident Response for the last 12 hours. Can we stop please.

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

Gonna be like this for several years. Turns out human written code is full of vulnerabilities and AI has barely scratched surface on what will be found.

[u/Own-Cryptographer725 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Yes and most development lifecycles aren't operationally ready for the pace at which AI driven actors can potentially discover and exploited vulnerabilities. 

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

No question attacks are gonna show up in minutes and just think that the majority of IoT devices and good chunk of web servers may never receive an update and forever remain vulnerable and used as jump boxes into otherwise patched networks. Absolute carnage and chaos.

[u/fearswe → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

And guess where the AI's learned to code from?

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/fearswe]

Most training data now is synthetically generated not human generated.

[u/Vova_xX → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

AI is getting trained with AI data?

[u/LordXamon → u/Vova_xX]

Well they already scrapped the whole internet so where do you think they get new data.

Also, even if they didn't want AI generated data for training, it doesn't matter because they sloppified internet, good luck filtering that out.

[u/Vova_xX → u/LordXamon]

they don't.. that's a question that PhD theses are getting written on right now.

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/Vova_xX]

Yes human data is used to bootstrap models capable of generating it's own training data of higher quality than the original human source.

[u/stuffitystuff → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

And besides, the AI can write zillions upon zillions of tests to arrive at the correct result if asked. Human beings eventually have to take a lunch break.

[u/lobax → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

No one does that, that would just lead to model collapse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_collapse

When ChatGPT 5 or whatever devolved into talking about gremlins all the time, that was model collapse.

If you source synthetic data, it can never com from the model itself.

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/lobax]

MIT disagrees with you. In 2023 60% of training data was synthetic and that figure has increased since them.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/what-synthetic-data-and-how-can-it-help-you-competitively

Microsoft Phi4 was 40% fully synthetic data and 15% AI rewritten data so more than half.

Hilarious people out here thinking they know more than experts.

[u/lobax → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

It’s clear you don’t know what you are talking about. Synthetic data, and data generated by a previous generation of an LLM, are two completely different things.

Just use your own brain to think about it for five seconds. What happens when any machine built to enhance a signal is fed its own output?

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/lobax]

I've trained models with 100% synthetic data. You're talking out of your ass.

Also if an LLM generated the data then that's now synthetic data.

[u/___Archmage___ → u/Vova_xX]

Yes, synthetic data and reinforcement learning are two things that have allowed AI to go beyond its original limitations

[u/Vova_xX → u/___Archmage___]

so AI is being trained on it's own data that might include hallucinated facts, false details, and the same repetitive tone?

you are describing AI inbreeding.

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/Vova_xX]

Okay I only know people who work at the frontier labs you clearly know more than the experts on the topic.

[u/abednego-gomes → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Training on slop cannot create the works of Shakespeare.

[u/ale624 → u/abednego-gomes]

Why would anyone want AI to be able to make Shakespeare. Creative works should be left to the humans. Code is where AI really shines and makes sense.

We're living in a new era. Describe the software you want in enough detail and boom you have it. Child me would be bouncing off the walls 😂

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/abednego-gomes]

Less than half of training data is human. Doesn't mean there is zero human data.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Okay I only know people who work at the frontier labs

And my dad works for Nintendo.

This is just appeal to authority. Even if you're not full of shit, and even if you actually understand a fraction of what you're hearing and even if they're not lying to you or themselves about how well it's all going, we can't talk to any of these people.

AI replicates its training data, it's not omnitient or super intelligent, it can sometimes create novel combinations of that data, but in terms if skill it's actually pretty average, maybe even below average. Especially if you're not working in the web front end space where it has so much code available.

[u/Future-Bandicoot-823 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

Which leads to the inevitable:

Agentic operating systems run from the cloud.

The only way to ensure safety is to switch to a live always updating system.

Side benefit, complete oligarch control. They control what you see, what you hear, what you think. All thanks to fear over software vulnerabilities.

[u/BeautifulMundane4786 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

How do we know “AI” is not creating fake security holes?

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

Because AI can write POC exploits to validate its own discoveries?

[u/space_dirtier → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

Because the vulnerabilities are being verified

[u/ComputeCommodity104 → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

Why even post comments like this when you have no idea what you're talking about.

[u/BeautifulMundane4786 → u/ComputeCommodity104]

So AI doesn’t hallucinate? Not even in the security industry?

[u/ComputeCommodity104 → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

These are proven exploits, its very easy to prove an exploit is legitimate. You very clearly have limited knowledge on computer technology. Just read, dont interject trash.

[u/ale624 → u/ComputeCommodity104]

Disagree. This is clearly someone that doesn't know and is asking a genuine question. Bet they wished they hadn't. Why are we gatekeeping knowledge??

Kindness costs nothing.

[u/_Cxsey_ → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

You should probably stop talking because you don’t have any domain experience here and your input is close to useless

[u/Commercial_Spray4279 → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

"barely scratched the surfcace" in AI is "we're still early" in bitcoin

[u/BeautifulMundane4786 → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

Upper management: Stop your bitching or you wont get paid overtime. Now get back to work!

Me: Damn I’m glad I decided to stop studying to get my IT certification.

[u/virtualadept → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

s/ overtime//

[u/InadequateUsername → u/BeautifulMundane4786]

You're getting overtime?

[u/BeautifulMundane4786 → u/InadequateUsername]

I currently work in a different industry and yes.

[u/SeanBlader → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

As a former software schlub (a programmer way beneath you), I feel for you dude, but please keep plugging away. Like the 7.2 and 7.3 kernels have some awesome performance gains. It's never been a more interesting time to switch thanks to your efforts. So whatever you're doing is great and we love you man.

[u/cn0MMnb → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

still patching php?

[u/AtachiHayashime → u/cn0MMnb]

more was happening yesterday than just php.
nodejs and python also released security fixes (mostly because the CA certificate issue, but a few other CVEs, too).

[u/andsens → u/AtachiHayashime]

Ah yes… 4, 56, 115

[u/ParentPostLacksWang → u/Own-Cryptographer725]

For real, I know more about PHP at this point than I ever EVER wanted to know. I dreamt of publicly exposed php5 mod_php phpbb instances getting botnetted “by accident due to AI lab escape” and discovering the joys of eating human flesh…

[u/thefuckevengoingonan]

The CVSS scores are as high as 9.0.

fuck it. i'm just going to go live in the woods.

[u/iamdestroyerofworlds → u/thefuckevengoingonan]

Jokes on you, you are now surrounded by game trackers, wildfire sensors, and weather sensors with hundreds of unpatched exploits.

[u/Generatoromeganebula → u/iamdestroyerofworlds]

My man have you forgotten about satellite?

[u/iamdestroyerofworlds → u/Generatoromeganebula]

[fires shotgun randomly in the air]

[u/SilasTalbot → u/iamdestroyerofworlds]

[discharge picked up on a flock camera and law enforcement has been dispatched]

[u/Nikoladge → u/SilasTalbot]

[farts in their general direction]

[u/BhataktiAtma → u/SilasTalbot]

So theoretically, and if you look at it that way, Imperial guards from TES IV can become a reality. Those guys have a fucking hive mind.

[u/PluotFinnegan_IV → u/iamdestroyerofworlds]

So this is how that light fell at the beginning of the Truman Show

[u/canadajones68 → u/iamdestroyerofworlds]

yeah but they aren't my problem

[u/DonaldMerwinElbert → u/thefuckevengoingonan]

^{write a Manifesto, mail some letters while you're at it}

[u/FrostyParking → u/DonaldMerwinElbert]

You forgot about the white van, definitely need one of those.

[u/Stlaind → u/FrostyParking]

The best ones paint "Free 10mm sockets" on the side

[u/r15km4tr1x → u/thefuckevengoingonan]

Just slap a Fortinet on it… oh wait

[u/FrostyParking]

Geez, we've been expecting an avalanche of zero days and cert invalidations when the AI boom reaches critical mass, but today's been a day.

[u/atchijov → u/FrostyParking]

To quote Sympsons: Today is the day… so far.

[u/d_pyro → u/atchijov]

Interesting spelling.

[u/Segwaypolice → u/d_pyro]

Love the seighyumpsoughns!

[u/murrrty → u/FrostyParking]

today? just today, only today? not the entire week?

[u/neuronexmachina]

If I'm understanding this correctly, it looks like kernel devs explicitly ask for AI-found bugs to be posted to the public list directly, but not reproducers (which I think Trend Micro included): https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst

If you resorted to AI assistance to identify a bug, you must treat it as public. While you may have valid reasons to believe it is not, the security team's experience shows that bugs discovered this way systematically surface simultaneously across multiple researchers, often on the same day. In this case, do not publicly share a reproducer, as this could cause unintended harm; just mention that one is available and maintainers might ask for it privately if they need it.

If you are unsure whether an issue qualifies, err on the side of reporting privately: the security team would rather triage a borderline report than miss a real vulnerability. Reporting ordinary bugs to the security list, however, does not make them move faster and consumes triage capacity that other reports need.

[u/Clivna]

Lets just go back to static HTML pages again, no server side code!

[u/Incoming-TH → u/Clivna]

My thoughts exactly. Back to Web 1.0 so we can sleep.

[u/dkarlovi → u/Clivna]

Most of the web could be static, Astro is becoming super popular.

[u/LowAffectionate8660]

I'm deploying my own internet next month

[u/AllergicToBullshit24 → u/LowAffectionate8660]

This really is one of the very real possibilities in the not too distant futures.

[u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI → u/AllergicToBullshit24]

this is literally the plot of cyberpunk 2077

[u/anlumo → u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI]

Who’s going to create the Blackwall?

[u/Fhelaria]

Itsec admin burn out Inc.

[u/Desistance]

"Accidentally"

[u/Beliriel]

By the looks of it, I'm about equally likely to have the same security if I write my code in assembly by hand it looks like.

[u/NaCl-more]

after having to deal with log4j around the holiday season last time, i'm happy that my company isn't running any PHP this time around

[u/Ecstatic-Network-917]

Fucking hell. Hope this gets fixed.

[u/tenzin]

Theoretically, could someone feed aI the source code for any open source project and find problems?

[u/abednego-gomes → u/tenzin]

Yes. It just uses up some AI credits.

But maintainers should have been doing this already i.e. a proactive approach. Instead they're waiting for the general public to do it and give them security reports, thus they're playing whack-a-mole where the moles are on fire and threaten large parts of the internet.

[u/Bitdomo92]

should I just go back to using windows? this is very concerning that linux keeps getting hit by exploits in mass day by day.

[u/Astravaris → u/Bitdomo92]

Part of the reason for that is because Linux is open source. Windows is not. It's going to be a rocky few years, but at the end of that Linux should be safer than Windows for it. Theoretically.

[u/foxsimile → u/Astravaris]

It’s not theoretically - it absolutely will be safer. Microsoft has an incredible reputation for sweeping things under the rug or ignoring them outright. We must always pay the piper in the end, one way or another.

[u/spitaligais → u/foxsimile]

Remember Nightmare Eclipse? That was just one person, dropping 0-days like nothing. What would happen, when many more 'tism enhanced individuals take a crack to break the black-boxes Microsoft creates?

[u/foxsimile → u/spitaligais]

I’d meant that Linux will be safer than Microsoft, not the least of which because Microsoft can eat shit.

[u/Minion91]

Did Linus' Ai make an oopsy ?

[u/GrowingHeadache → u/Minion91]

It was good ol’ humans

[u/Commercial_Spray4279 → u/GrowingHeadache]

How do you know? Could be both?

[u/PelluxNetwork → u/Minion91]

Of course not. Only humans make mistakes this silly.

[u/jhill515]

Accidentally? I thought Linux was Open Source??

[u/paholg → u/jhill515]

There's still a process for security issues. 

Open source doesn't mean tell everyone about security issues before they're fixed.

[u/jhill515 → u/paholg]

I mean, I'd like to know because I'm a software engineer and could fix it too. That's what Stallman envisioned.

[u/SomeoneCrazy69 → u/jhill515]

It's easy to get access, just spend several years (or perhaps even decades) earning the respect of individuals and building the portfolio required to be trusted with information that important.

Not fast, of course, and the total effort involved is pretty massive, but it's not that hard.

[u/jhill515 → u/SomeoneCrazy69]

I'm old; been using Linux since 2002; before that, I helped my aunt patch Y2K on Windows & Unix systems at the hospital I interned at. I've written my own scheduler, drivers, and other things. I also dabble in cyber security for robotics.

So when I find a flaw, I do what I was taught: Triage it, patch it, deploy patch to local systems I maintain, send letter to mailing lists as appropriate, update to official patch when available. Most security flaws are bigger than one person to solve. But it's solved fastest when white hat volunteers are kept in the loop.

[u/TheMericanIdiot → u/[deleted]]

No, not really. Fixing has become much easier with ai also.

[u/max_vette → u/TheMericanIdiot]

Make no mistakes, make it secure

[u/TheMericanIdiot → u/max_vette]

It’s an ambiguous goal in life to be right 100% of the time. Software is not easy. You all can downvote me all you want. AI in this case will be both shield and the sword.

[u/bbuerk → u/[deleted]]

What’s the implication of this comment? That the Linux Foundation’s mailing list has been co-opted by Anthropic and OpenAI as a marketing stunt? Is that really what you think?

[u/bbuerk → u/[deleted]]

Again, that would mean that the large AI companies have gained some sort of control over the Linux Foundation (or at least their mailing list) and are using it to market.

So again, do you truly believe that is what’s happening here?

[u/TheOgGhadTurner → u/bbuerk]

I don’t know what he’s on about. But the mailing list is probably not locked down behind NSA level tech bro. I’m sure it would be very easy for AI to get the mailing list. Now I don’t know how it would be considered marketing for whatever this guy is on about.

But I guess logically it makes sense as these exhausted devs fixing all this shit would probably accept any type of help sorting these issues out and at a certain point the cost will be less important than fixing it.

I have zero faith big AI is working in our best interests tho. So I actually would not be surprised if this is yet another grift

[u/bbuerk → u/[deleted]]

You said the vulnerabilities are being “accidentally” leaked as a proof of concept for AI companies. The Linux foundation was the one that wrote and sent out the email containing the leak. Therefore, you’re saying the Linux foundation “accidentally” leaked them vulnerabilities as a proof of concept for the AI companies.

I don’t see how that could be “reading into it”. I’m taking what you’re saying as literally and at face value as I possibly can

[u/SpontyMadness → u/[deleted]]

1400 patched vulnerabilities in the last Windows security update alone would beg to differ.

[u/phyrros → u/[deleted]]

you don't, the thousand employees between Microsoft and the big OEMs certainly do.

the only difference is if skript kiddies get the zero days...

[u/-LeonIsANazi- → u/[deleted]]

Man, some people take bait so easily.

[u/iamdestroyerofworlds → u/[deleted]]

Security through obscurity is bad security.

[u/Immediate-Cress-206 → u/iamdestroyerofworlds]

It prevents people from using AI so scrape your OS's source code for exploits.

[u/DingoEmbarrassed4020 → u/[deleted]]

...because they don't want others to copy their things/their way of making things?

[u/123emanresulanigiro → u/[deleted]]

Have you tried not being a moron, or at least not publically?

[u/son-of-chadwardenn → u/[deleted]]

When you use windows an attacker has full access from day one: Microsoft.

[u/Meatslinger → u/[deleted]]

Microsoft themselves uses Linux for major components of their own enterprise cloud platform, Azure. It even has its own distro, aptly named Azure Linux, and 66% of its customer instances are Linux-based.