RE: [cobalt-users] BIND vulnerability

["Dom Latter" <d.latter@xxxxxxx>]

Colin wrote:

> >But seriously, I'd say that us MIPSen are at less
> >risk of compromise than the Intel users.
> 
> Can you say why this is so?? I'm curious, because (to me)
> the BIND vulnerability is software and as such, (I *assume*) unrelated
> to the CPU type running on the boxen.

Firstly: I don't know as much about this as I would like to.
What follows is largely conjecture!

Once a vulnerability is identified, you then need to 
create tools to exploit it.  If the purpose of the tool 
is DoS then presumably this will not be platform-specific:
a buffer overflow leads to stack corruption and a system 
crash.

If on the other hand the aim is to *compromise* a m/c, 
by which I mean gain root access, then this would be CPU
specific - your "injected" code is going to have to be 
compiled for that CPU.

So any tools being written to take advantage of this 
vulnerability are more likey to be aimed at Intel 
machines.