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November 29, 2007
Caveat Newbie: Ubuntu Forums Dealing With Malicious Heels
The Ubuntu forums are having trouble with malicious heels:
"We've recently had an increase in the number of dangerous commands being posted on the forums. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean -- commands that cause massive damage or disruption to the user's computer.
[...]
"I'd also like to remind users to be cautious when someone tells you to run some command or download some script as a solution to your problem. When in doubt as to the safety of the procedure, it's always a good idea to wait for more opinions, and/or have the command explained to you and verify if the explanation makes sense by consulting readily available documentation on Linux commands (such as manpages)."
Some of the commands they're warning against:
rm -rf / rm -rf . rm -rf * any_command > /dev/sda dd if=something of=/dev/sda wget http://some_place/some_file sh ./some_file
And there are some more subtle ones on the list, too, though not by much.
(via Lifehacker)
Posted by mhall at 1:42 PM | Add Comment
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