Intrinsic Propensity for Vulnerability in Computers? Arbitrary Code Execution in the Universal Turing Machine

Abstract: The universal Turing machine is generally considered to be the simplest, most abstract model of a computer. This paper reports on the discovery of an accidental arbitrary code execution vulnerability in Marvin Minsky's 1967 implementation of the universal Turing machine. By submitting crafted data, the machine may be coerced into executing user-provided code. The article presents the discovered vulnerability in detail and discusses its potential implications. To the best of our knowledge, an arbitrary code execution vulnerability has not previously been reported for such a simple system.