“Netect Inc., provider of anti- hacker solutions, today informed
the public of a potentially devastating security vulnerability that
affects some of the Internet’s most widely used software. The
security hole was discovered by Netect’s internal team of security
experts, during the course of their ongoing investigation of the
latest network security threats. This vulnerability has been
discovered to exist on various flavors of UNIX, including Linux and
SCO UnixWare, shipments of which are growing at strong rates
according to industry analysts.
“By exploiting the vulnerability, a hacker could gain
administrative privileges to the computer on which the FTP server
is installed.”
Specifically, the Palmetto bug impacts any server running the
latest version of ProFTPD or the latest version of Wu-FTPD
including RedHat’s Linux, SCO’S UNIXware, Caldera System’s
OpenLinux and Walnut Creek’s Slackware.
“Red Hat recognizes the importance of secure systems to our
customers, and we encourage our customers to download and apply our
patches immediately,” said Cristian Gafton, Chief Developer at Red
Hat Software. “We appreciate Netect bringing this issue to the
forefront, and we applaud Netect’s ongoing efforts to keep
corporate networks secure.”
“Companies impacted by the Palmetto Bug can permanently repair
the security hole by installing a patch from their OS system vendor
or the software’s author.”