LOL, all Linux vendors = Red Hat.
All generalizations are false.
Saying you can solve the existence of bugs in any code repository reeks of bullshit. Anyone who believes this is possible is just ignorant.
We’re training too many “security” people.
Random excerpts.
“Any bug has the potential of being a security issue at the kernel level.”
Although the programmers examined RHEL 8.8 specifically, this is a general problem. They would have found the same results if they had examined SUSE, Ubuntu, or Debian Linux. Rolling-release Linux distros such as Arch, Gentoo, and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed constantly release the latest updates, but they’re not used in businesses.
The proposed fix:
The team advocates for a shift toward using stable kernel branches from kernel.org for better security and bug management.
Woah, someone discovered fire.
They’re also completely missing the point of distro kernel trees. Stable automatically selects patches from mainline (largely by keyword, and often without kernel developer feedback) and consequently has a massive amount of code churn and very little validation beyond shipping releases and waiting for regression reports. Distro trees are the buffer where actual testing happens before release. As a long term stable user it really isn’t suitable for end user or enterprise consumption unless you have your own in house validation process to test releases for regressions before deployment. Even running stable on client machines (desktops, laptops) leads to a bad time every few weeks when something sneaks in that breaks functionality.
It’s funny, because there was research done by UC Riverside which specifically figured out LTS branches receive patches for CVEs significantly later than vendor specific branches. Specifically:
Interestingly, we note that the picked CVE patches appear in distributions 74.2 days earlier than LTS on average;
They also conveniently left out the part of Greg KH’s opinion stating that he recommends the use of vendor kernels over stable/LTS branches, too.
I found this particularly funny:
It all comes down to a delicate balancing act between security and stability. Some top Linux kernel developers and CIQ are coming down on the side of security.
Now I know CIQ is “supposedly” different from rocky, but what is CIQ going to do, break bug-for-bug compat and use stable kernels in their supported version of Rocky? This entire article feels like it doesn’t fundamentally understand that not all bugs (especially ones that lead to potential low-ranking CVEs) aren’t worth patching.
Turns out the biggest bug of all was keeping the default password.
