Dirty Cow Linux vulnerability – am I protected?

Dirty Cow is currently receiving lots of media coverage, which in turn leads to inquiries from our customers too. But don’t worry, at 34SP.com, we’ve got you covered!

What is Dirty COW?

COW is an acronym for Copy On Write – a programming technique. COW allows multiple processes to access a single file without conflicts. It can sometimes be referred to as ‘shadowing‘ or ‘implicit sharing‘ and an integral part of virtual memory management within a Linux based environment.

Dirty COW refers to the recent Linux bug allowing write protected files to be exploited. This latest vulnerability has received so much press recently, that we wanted to make sure you as a 34SP.com client have everything you need to know. The bug was publicly acknowledged on October 19th and ranked as Important with RedHat. If you would like to learn more about this vulnerability take a look at the Dirty COW website.

 

Am I protected against Dirty COW?

If you use the following products, the quick answer is yes:

• Professional Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• Business Hosting
• Reseller VPS Hosting

As these are managed services, our engineers have been working behind the scenes to ensure these products are up to date with the latest security patches; all these servers should be upto date by the time you read this post. If you have an unmanaged dedicated server with us or a legacy Reseller Hosting plan though, your service may not be patched without contacting us.

If you have any further questions simply contact us ASAP so we can advise.