Shellshock Vulnerability and how to Protect Against It

In 2014 the computer safety world was rocked on its heels when the Heartbleed Virus was discovered. It was estimated that almost $500 million dollars’ worth of sensitive data was compromised. That is an incredible security breach on what are supposed to be cyber safe companies. In more bad news for internet safety there is now a new threat lurking out there; it’s called Shellshock Vulnerability. So once again computer safety experts are getting together and coming up with ways to stop this threat. Take a look at what this new vulnerability is and the steps that the professionals have to take to stop it.

What is Shellshock Vulnerability                                    

Experts agree that the Shellshock Vulnerability is a very serious threat that could have wide ranging and widespread impacts.

Shellshock Vulnerability works by taking advantage of HTTP headers and other computer trigger mechanisms to grant unauthorized access to an underlying shell system called Bash. The Shellshock Vulnerability attacks and takes advantage of a flawed area in the Bash System Shell that permits the hackers to enable remote commands that normally are easily blocked by the shell. This is a very serious high risk threat to computer safety when outside permissions are able to remotely access and execute commands on a computer. It basically exposes every bit of data on the system to being compromised.

Another thing that makes this threat so serious is the fact that there are a lot of Bash commands out there that have the same flaw that allows Shellshock Vulnerability access into the system. What is the biggest fear associated with this flaw? If taken one step further it could be automatically coded into the Shellshock Vulnerability to download and execute a malicious program that compromises the entirety of the system, not just portions of it.

Shellshock Vulnerability Threat Mitigation

The best defense against Shellshock Vulnerability is the reprogramming of the system. The problem here is the time factor it takes to get the reprogramming done and then implemented. Eventually there will be system-level patches, but until those are installed the threat is still present.

The second line of defense is a Web Application Firewall. These are constantly being updated and the programmers are well aware of the Shellshock Vulnerability and are constantly writing code to defend against it.

It obviously is a very real threat and to be taken seriously, but just like its predecessor the Heartbleed Virus, Programmers and technicians will eventually get the upper hand and eradicate the threat.