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Apple Uncommunicative About Security Holes
blackmonday writes "Kieren McCarthy of Techworld argues that Mac OS X is rife with security holes, and that Apple is doing a 'half-hearted' job of patching their operating system security holes, and has a 'strange habit of pretending a big problem is of no significance.' As a Mac user I find this an intriguing article in light of the Sasser Worm and its recent variants." Despite the article's assertions, no evidence of widespread security problems, or lack of effort to solve them, is offered. The only real question is Apple's lack of communication with the public in the nature of the problems.
Well, let's see: If Apple has been uncommunicative about the presence (or absence) of any security holes, it is simply because they would rather not publicize the presence of particular holes. It's good policy for their OS while also maintaining an open source presence with Darwin that allows for public scrutiny. It should also be noted that Apple is also working towards approval of certain security ratings from assorted groups and governmental agencies, but they are not publicizing that either. They would rather maintain a low profile and have good reasons for doing so. After all, the core of OS X, the NeXT OS has a long history of a presence in intelligence and security circles (NSA, CIA, FBI etc...).
I read the linked article and was absolutely stunned at how superficial the evidence was given the claims being made. If one is going to make such statements, one would think there would be a little more substance, but hey the article certainly has garnered some attention, so perhaps that was the sole goal of the author? Or if one were likely to believe in conspiracies, one might guess that the author was put up to writing the article by a potential competitor? In science, we have to publish "disclosures" that establish corporate or political linkages. Perhaps it is time for the news media to do the same?
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A comment in response to the Scobleizer blog said it best:
DO they ship apache with every copy of mac os x?
Yes. The configuration is difficult to deal with, but it certainly ships on every OS X machine.
The long story is that you have to go to the "System Preferences" application, click on the "Sharing" panel, and check the box marked "Personal Web Sharing".
I realize that had a lot of "tech" "jargon", but that's how you configure Apache on Mac OS X.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
There lots of people out there who don't know what you know. Techworld, sounds so ... official, it must be true! I was trying to expose a BS article without explicitly calling it that. I'm glad we're debunking it.
Man, I haven't read such an obviously antagonistic bit of tripe like that in a long time. Mentioning 5 possible exploits which all require default-off services to be enabled, only one of which could lead to a system-wide compromise under 99% of normal circumstances, then calling "Sasser" trivial in comparison (sorry.. "a blip") is not only completely incorrect but is irresponsible journalism.
The AFS vulnerability, which is the only process in the whole list which runs under root privs, would require someone be running AFS (the Apple equiv of NFS) over the Internet. It has been known for a very long time that NFS is *ONLY* for internal trusted networks. AFS is turned off by default on Macs, and the vast majority of users (certainly almost all home users) would never need to enable it.
The Quicktime vuln would only affect files owned by the executing user. Certainly a pain in the ass, but not fatal or prone to "zombification" of your computer like Sasser.
The Apache vulns, IIRC, are of the DOS type (one is a memory leak condition). Irritating, but not critical, unlike Sasser.
Kieren McCarthy should be ashamed of himself for writing such a disingenuous load of crap as that article. Microsoft's history of disclosure and cooperation with security research firms is ** FAR ** from unblemished.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
With all due respect, this is much ado about nothing. Let's examine some of the claims:
* Some older vulnerabilities in Apache 2 can be exploited by malicious people to inject malicious characters into log files and cause a DoS
Who is running Apache 2? Are most OS X users running their own web server in the first place? This isn't an Apple issue. Anyone who is running Apache, which includes all flavors of Unix as well as Windows has the same issues, but of those, the 2.x tree?? A tiny minority probably not even worth mentioning. This isn't necessarily Apple's responsibility unless they've branded Apache 2 and offered it as some core feature.
* Two vulnerabilities in the IPSec implementation can be exploited by malicious people to conduct MitM attacks (Man-in-the-Middle), establish unauthorised connections, or cause a DoS.
Again, this is an OpenSSL issue, not an Apple issue, and it has nothing specifically to do with Apple. The circumstances under which this exploit would be taken advantage of are pretty limited. That's not to say any of these issues shouldn't be addressed, and maybe Apple should more accurately call attention to these vulnerabilities but they aren't really the issues justified by the FUD being spewed.
* A vulnerability within AppleFileServer can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system.
Ok, this may be ONE issue so far that is attributable to Apple.
* An unspecified vulnerability exists within the CoreFoundation when handling environment variables. This may potentially be a privilege escalation vulnerability. This has not been confirmed, though.
WTF? An "unspecified vulnerability" that "has not been confirmed"? Did the lawyers from SCO write this article?
* An unspecified vulnerability exists within RAdmin when handling large requests. This may potentially be a system compromise issue. This has not been confirmed, though.
More unconfirmed vulnerabilities? Nice FUD.
Can you name a single Windows flaw that was in the kernel?
= CAN-2003-0112
n /MS03-013.mspx
http://www.net-security.org/vuln.php?id=3401
http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name
I don't think Microsoft has ever released a patch to the Windows kernel via Windows Update. Can anyone confirm this?
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulleti
Google is your friend.
I read this article and thought it utter FUD. First the guy asserts that Mac OS X is rifed with security holes, when really compared to Windows there just aren't that many. But it seemed his real complaint is that not a lot of people are talking about the security holes. I mean, in all honesty, why would Apple talk about the security holes, unless they were so plagued by them that consumers were continously calling up complaining, there really is no reason to talk about a security hole.
Investigate it, acknowledge it, and patch it-- that's what I see as the typical course of action, even for Microsoft, and Apple does this reasonablly well. In fact, most of my knowledge about the various Apple related security holes comes directly from Apple in their knowledge-base articles related to the various security patches. It's only randomly that I hear about a security hole that will also effect Apple from a third party source, before I hear it from Apple. But I'll admit to most of my security subscriptions tend to cater to the PC, for obvious reasons.
Also, it seems to me that Apple spends a fair amount of time patching security holes in the various open source solutions its using/tying in with Mac OS X. Which means that technically many of these security holes are also effecting Linux, and Unix machines as well. Like the security update from yesterday or the day before address issues in Apache, IPSec, OpenSSL, and CUPS.
The guy mentions the QuickTime flaw, which was patched weeks ago by Apple, per normal, in a quite automated QuickTime update. He then also mentions that "trojan" that never was. Basically a proof of concept idea that was published, but works technically not that much differently on a Windows machine. Basically, someone can change the icon of an application to that of an MP3 file, and run code when double-clicked. Did anyone besides Intego consider this a big deal, even Symantec scoffed at it, and scolded Intego, though they did duly post a low level security warning.
The truth is, to my knowledge Apple doesn't rate security updates. An update is either a normal bug fix or feature addition, or its a security update. Apple expects all its users to Apple each of their security patches, and to the best of my knowledge has never used a security patch to ship in unwanted software or system changes. So why complain that Apple hasn't called the security updates a "critical" security update. The knowledge base typically includes who original posted the hole/flaw, and the item number, so you can go read the details yourself, and look at the rating attribute.
Blah, blah, blah...isn't this just more of I'm looking, scraping, scrouning for something bad to say about Apple security. I guess, I'd be more forgiving, if the article actual focused in on the various security issues, as opposed to chastising Apple for what, not taking out a press release about them?
"While Apple seems to be patching fairly regularly, the last security update (the group of 4) was a little lacking in that it offered no explanations ... As I work in IT, I'm often left installing patches with Apple with no clue what they're doing under the hood"
Apple's description of the patch was rather terse (AppleFileServer: Fixes CAN-2004-0430 to improve the handling of long passwords. Credit to Dave G. from @stake for reporting this issue."), but it provides the reference (CAN-2004-0430) that provides full details. Admittedly, this did require a google search, or reading the usual advisory lists. But it's certainly not hidden from anyone who wants the detail.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
You're right, it's very often the case that worms and such are exploiting vulnerabilities for which Microsoft issues patches long before. However, there are a few reasons that's the case.
1) My very-non-expert understanding of Microsoft's update mechanism is that there are several semi-overlapping systems which are relevant, and that some or all of them do not default to running automatically. (I've never used Windows myself, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken about this. It's the impression I've acquired after listening to many Windows users.)
Contrast this to Apple's Software Update tool, which defaults to checking for updates once a week, and handles all hardware and firmware from Apple. It requires explicit permission from the user to perform upgrades, but it does take the liberty of downloading "important" updates before requesting a final go-ahead, making it as painless as possible.
2) Microsoft's patches have a pretty high incidence of causing problems for previously-working systems. My understanding is that this is often related to a very inflexible shared library system which encourages third-party developers to overwrite standard system DLLs with their own versions left and right, predictably causing problems upon future update.
While it is absolutely the case that updates from Apple occasionally cause problems, it seems to be relatively rare. I personally have no qualms about simply agreeing immediately to any update Apple offers me; I've been doing so for five years now, and I haven't had any cause to regret it yet.
So, yes, a very high percentage of systems out there are lacking patches which Microsoft has made available. But there are still some senses in which Microsoft is very responsible for that being the case.