Ramen "in the wild". (Security Supplement).

Kaspersky Lab, warns users about the real threat posed by the Ramen Internet-worm. According to recent reports, the worm has already caused several incidents of Web sites in different parts of the world being defaced; therefore, Ramen has become the first malicious code for Linux that has been detected 'in-the-wild.' Ramen was originally discovered in the middle of January 2001, and can spread via the Internet and penetrate systems running Red Hat Linux versions 6.2 and 7.0. In order to gain access to a computer, the worm exploits three known security breaches in these particular operating systems. These breaches allow Ramen to take over the root access rights and unknown to the user execute its code on the target systems. Confirmation is available of Ramen penetrating into several corporate networks. Among them are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Texas A&M University, and Taiwan-based computer hardware manufacturer Supermicro.

"The discovery of the Ramen worm 'in-the-wild' is a very significant moment in computer history. Previously considered as an absolutely secure operating system, Linux now has become yet another victim to computer malware,' said Kaspersky Lab. During the past 8 years since Linux was first developed, there have been discovered about 50 malicious programs for this operating system, but none of them had yet to be sighted "in-the-wild.' It is important to emphasize that the aforementioned security breaches were discovered more than half a year ago. Right after this, Red Hat Linux developers immediately released corresponding security patches eliminating the problem. "The fact that Ramen penetrated into several respected organizations, including NASA, shows that even the most professional network engineers don't pay enough attention to timely installation of security patches in order to protect their systems. Kaspersky Lab recommends users immediately install all the available security patches for the Linux operati ng system regardless of the Linux distribution currently used. Readers can download the patches and read what Red Hat officials have said about the Ramen worm at the following address: http://www.redhat.com/support/alerts/ramen worm.html.