Linux and Unix are severely flawed

Over the weekend, security experts discovered a very serious flaw in Linux and Unix operating systems, capable of allowing hackers to remotely attack and hijack the system.

The above vulnerability is included in the open source KDE software package and is discovered by the Security Incident Response Team (SIRT - France). It is known that KDE is a desktop software package for Linux, Unix, Konqueror Web browsers, and some other popular applications.

According to SIRT's announcement, the vulnerability lies in the JavaScript compiler engine used by Konqueror Web browser and some other parts of KDE. An attacker can impersonate a URI string encoded with UFT-8 to exploit the vulnerability.

In order to be successful, hackers must lure users to access the websites they create (using Konqueror browser). Affected versions include KDE versions from 3.2.0 to KDE 3.5.0.