Shellshock Vulnerability Revealed

Shellshock Vulnerability Revealed

It seems that Apple has been incredibly unlucky lately. Shellshock is a recently discovered major security vulnerability which could allow people with hacking skills to control your computer and other devices running certain operating systems.

Shellshock is named this way because it is a flaw found in Bash, a shell program generally utilized by Linux and UNIX operating systems such as OS X. This vulnerability affects everything that runs bash commands, so a wide array of devices including your wireless router could also be affected. Apparently, iOS and Android phones run a different type of bash commands, so they seem on the safe side.

This security problem seems to have existed for a long time, but only recently has been discovered so it may have already affected a lot of unaware users. If you are running Windows, this threat doesn't concern you, but if you have a device running Mac or Linux, here's what to do:

• OS X users should go to this link to find out how to test for the vulnerability and how to fix it. I will warn you that repairing it is going to be a pain without Xcode. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, Apple will more than likely release a patch for this problem ASAP so, in case the computer in question isn't a Mac server, it's probably OK to wait until they fix it.
• Linux users should try this command: env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c 'echo hello' and if you see the word vulnerable returned, then you have a problem. Updating your system and reinstalling bash is your best bet to get rid of the issue.

In case you were wondering about what others might do by exploiting this vulnerability: they can steal your data, drastically change the website that you are hosting, make your machine part of a botnet network, etc.