Monday, 16 April 2007

Wi-Fi Bug Found in Linux

A bug has been found in a Linux Wi-Fi driver. This vulnerability can allow a fraudster to take control of a laptop. It affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets, according to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange.

"You may be vulnerable if you do not manually patch your MadWi-Fi driver," said Butti. Before making it public, he shared the flaw with the MadWi-Fi development team, who has released a patch. However, not all Linux distributions have yet built the patch into their code, said Butti.

The flaw allows an attacker run malicious code, and can be used even if the machine is not actively on a Wi-Fi network, according to Butti.