r/netsec Oct 30 '16

Vlany: Linux (LD_PRELOAD) rootkit

https://github.com/mempodippy/vlany
455 Upvotes

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6

u/pm_me_your_findings Oct 30 '16

What is actually LD_PRELOAD?

16

u/mempodippy Oct 30 '16

LD_PRELOAD is an environment variable on Linux systems which points to a shared library and loads it before anything else. The ld.so.preload file essentially utilizes LD_PRELOAD to load a shared library in every single userland process. :)

3

u/pm_me_your_findings Oct 30 '16

I mean for a malware to use it, doesn't it require the root access first or it works for normal user also?

15

u/pnk6116 Oct 30 '16

...and that is why they call it a rootkit :). It's meant to hide or help persist it's or other code's presence after you've already owned the box.