Researchers at the Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU) have unearthed discovered a critical security flaw in OpenSSH's server (sshd) in glibc-based Linux systems.
Can't it use built in OS mechanisms for that? Surely you could figure out a way to only give it permissions it needs. Maybe break it up into two separate processes.
Preliminary note: OpenSSH is one of the most secure software in the
world; this vulnerability is one slip-up in an otherwise near-flawless
implementation. Its defense-in-depth design and code are a model and an
inspiration, and we thank OpenSSH's developers for their exemplary work.
Root because it use port 22. I think anything lower than port 1024 requires it.
But if this is true, then you can try change the port it is listening to something higher than that.