TAIPEI, Taiwan: The US government has joined an array of researchers warning of a security flaw that could allow hackers to access devices ranging from computers to video cameras and steal data.

A vulnerability in some Unix-based systems, such as Linux and Mac OS X, “may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected system,” the US Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in a statement on its website. Systems administrators can fix the flaw with a patch, it said.

The vulnerability affects Bourne again shell, or Bash, one of the most widely installed pieces of software on any Linux system, software maker Red Hat Inc. said in a statement on its security blog.

The vulnerability, dubbed Shell Shock, could let hackers insert extra code into a computer leading to data theft or the crashing of networks.