Call it the backspace bug.
Vice's Motherboard is reporting that two security researchers with the Cybersecurity Group at Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain discovered Tuesday that all you need to do to break into several Linux computer systems is hit backspace 28 times.
That hack will take you from the login screen straight into the system in a problem that Linux needs to address and clear up immediately.
Motherboard reports that the bug resides in Grub2, a bootloader utilized to start most Linux systems. Cybersecurity Group researchers Hector Marco and Ismael Ripoll say hackers can access a "Grub rescue shell" to gain entry to the computer's data and install malware or steal all the data altogether if a Linux system is vulnerable to this bug.
The 28 consistent backspaces generate a systems error that prompts a rescue function, and just like that, you're in.
Marco told Motherboard that from researching Grub2's code, they "concluded the number of backspaces hits was the only input controllable by the user to cause different manifestations of the error."
Cybersecurity experts are disappointed to have learned of this bug and rather easy hack.
"It is irresponsible for grub to lack decades-old exploit mitigations like stack cookies that could have addressed this issue," Trail of Bits security firm founder Dan Guido told Motherboard.
