Remote shutdown vulnerability ?

[Gabriel Dragffy]

On Sat, 2006-12-02 at 15:27 +0000, Mike Zeinz wrote:
> Hello,
>           I'm writing to this ML to report a dirty scene that happened 
> to me.
>           I have ubuntu edgy installed in a machine located at room A.
>           Now, someone calls me to go to room B and locked me in that room
>           that have a machine running Windows. I really don't remember 
> if I've
>           locked my machine in room A somehow with xlock or locked my 
> terminal..
>           For security reasons I decided to download putty and access my 
> machine
>           in room A and shutdown with `sudo shutdown now`.
>           The thing was when I came back to my machine it wasn't off, 
> and worst
>           it had root at bob# terminal opened.
> 
>           What went wrong?
>             Did I shut down the machine incorrectly?
>             Is this a flaw? (...)
>             What else can originate this flaw?
>             How can I solve the problem?
> 
> Regards,
>                 Mike.
> 

I'm not sure exactly, but I always successfully shut down using:
sudo shutdown -hP now