Vulnerabilities on an RFC-1918 masqueraded Linux box.

I'm putting this in a separate thread because IMHO it has nothing to do
with any problems I'm having, but with desktop security in general.

On Mon, 2011-03-21 at 09:57 +0100, Roman Zilka wrote:
> The third suggestion is probably the most important one: being NAT'd
> and being behind any iptables configuration (that allows for operations
> such as sending mail and browsing the web) doesn't make your PC
> invulnerable or anything near that. In other words, active break-in
> attempts via open ports is by far not the only option hackers have.

So give me an example, Roman, assuming one's firewall is intact and
functioning as designed.  The only such class of possible exploits I can
think of is the possibility of importing a virus, trojan, worm, etc. via
email, or possibly via a web script.  Linux viruses propagated via email
are scarcer than hen's teeth, and an exploit imported thusly which would
leverage a vulnerability in a specific problem kernel is almost
certainly rare enough to be considered nonexistent in the wild as a
practical matter.  Please cite specific viruses/trojans, and if you can,
reported cases of such exploits.  In other words, don't blow smoke at me
or throw out generalized assertions without citing evidence to support
them.

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