Hit hard by Shellshock? Why you should really be worried

You might have heard by now about a new problem in the computer world – Shellshock. I’ll spare you the technical details. The one thing you should know is that this bug was discovered in a part of the Linux operating system. Linux, the free version of Unix, with numerous variations in distribution, is embedded in countless number of devices. As far as people know, the bug was introduced sometimes in 1992.

Developers are working hard and creating fixes and patches and updates; and distributing them as fast as possible. As they do, they are finding additional vulnerabilities. However, that’s not the problem.

The issue at hand is that the number of devices affected is now in 100’s of millions. The majority of website servers are using some version of Linux. Apple computers are vulnerable, your home router, which connects you to the Internet has it. Any device branded as ‘smart’ is most likely to run a version of Linux. Vendors of all stripes, which chose to use Linux, are also affected. It is everywhere. All these devices are connected to the Internet and not all of them can be even fixed.

This is the problem. We know which line of code to fix, but we don’t know where to apply it. If you thought that you didn’t have a problem before, now you do.