> The vulnerability is caused by the fact that atop always tries to connect
to the TCP port of 'atopgpud' during initialization. When another local
program has been started (instead of 'atopgpud') that listens to this TCP
port, atop connects to that program. Such program is able then to send
unexpected strings that may lead to parsing failures in atop. These failures
result in heap problems and segmentation faults.
Okay, so, if I have a shell and the rights to listen on a host, I can crash the "atop" of other users? That's it ? I could also create a fork bomb, fill up the disk, use all CPU and memory, etc...
Not the same thing at all if atop runs as root and you are a user on that system that has no root access. With a well-prepared exploit you could achieve code execution as root. That's a bit more than a simple Denial of Service by filling up the disk.
Okay, so, if I have a shell and the rights to listen on a host, I can crash the "atop" of other users? That's it ? I could also create a fork bomb, fill up the disk, use all CPU and memory, etc...