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CERT Recommends Mozilla, Firefox
EvilStein writes "According to this article, "CERT recommends that Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by the attack, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera."
Quite a statement from CERT - this is related to a fairly recent IIS or IE exploit that has already affected some high traffic web sites, such as the Kelley Blue Book website."
CERT's recommendation usually is to download the patch. However, since this hole has an exploit in the wild, and there isn't a patch to be found... use something else is the only recommendation left to issue.
Mac, Linux and other non-Windows operating systems are immune from this attack.
At least he said "this attack" instead of "attacks".
Anybody have a list of which sites were affected by this IE/IIS problem. Seems as though it's been kept under wraps pretty well so far.
San Jose Mercury news indicates Yahoo!, Earthlink, and EBay. True, not true?
Now KBB?
Thanks.
Caution: Contents under pressure
but joe user wont read this or know about it. too bad eh?
the only way is to hijack people's computer, install a real broswer, and put the IE icon on it.
Here's the beta version of my freeware program popURL (for Windows, sorry!). You can copy a URL to the clipboard (Copy Link Location) then click the tray icon, and popURL will pop up an info box on the URL telling you the software running on the remote server (IIS, Apache, whatever); the MIME type of the document, and its size if available. Potentially useful for safe, IIS-free browsing :) On UNIX you can get the same info using wget -S though somewhat less convenient.
But this is Slashdot, aren't they really just preaching to the choir on this one?
that some security flaws are Windows only. In a local newpapers there was a small article about the latest security exploit that could install a trojan on your machine, and thus possibly empty your bank account. For once, it was said this only was an issue for users using Microsoft Windows in combination with Internet Explorer. Usually, when a Microsoft Windows virus/trojan/worm is reported, no reference is made to Windows as such.
Well, considering that Internet Explorer is an "integral part of the operating system" they are only a hair shy of telling people to switch to an operating system that isn't vulnerable to so many damn critical remote vulnerabilities.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
My piece, written for the non-techie masses, on why they should consider other browsers:r chives/2004 0615_why_you_should_dump_internet_explorer.phtml
http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/a
I am glad to see CERT step up and make a decision like this despite the fact that they are guaranteed to be flogged for it.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
I love Firefox but I have to use IE for a few sites, maybe this will force these last few sites to step up and get their sites working with other browsers.
Nothing annoy's me more than to get a message that my browser is not supported when I visit a page!
What seems to be novel about this attack is that it uses holes in both IIS and IE. When an IIS server is attacked, the payload is to compromise the site such that malicious code is inserted into every page with no outward sign that anything's wrong. That code in turn exploits a hole in IE to get onto a user's PC, which in turn goes looking for more IIS sites to compromise.
This worm depends on there being flaws in both programs. It wouldn't be nearly as powerful if those two flaws couldn't be used in concert.
I think this is just like the straw that broke IIS's back on the server side. Big holes, no solutions...The big boys say your only solution is to use a safe product - all of a sudden Apache is golden. And this is not like your neighbor geek saying "hey, check out this browser" -- next we just need gartner to say -- do not use IE....and then that will be all she wrote. RIP IE. With all of your popups, tabless browsing and thousand of security holes, good riddence. Rot in hell.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Good recommendation from CNET. I am a windows user (mostly) and get a chance to use unix boxes only at work. if using a web-browser, IE was the default choice since it's bundled with windows. I installed opera, netscape but they had issues loading a couple of webpages. I then tried mozilla but it was too slow. I then tried avant browser and it worked wonders albeit for a short period of time. The popup's were still coming, and there isn't a shortcut for opening a new tab. Finally, I moved on to Firefox 0.8 and 95% of the time, I am a die-hard user of firefox.
I now use IE only to open my native language webpages since they aren't encoded properly in firefox. I would be grateful to anyone if they can show me how to open www.eenadu.net in Firefox. The native language is Telugu, if anyone needs it
V
I switched a month ago from Outlook to Thunderbird, which went so well that I switched last week from IE to Firefox. Especially the ease of importing of previous Outlook/IE settings was astonishing!
On the other hand, I found out that it is not that simple to get rid of IE though, a quick search reveals that it is not always simple[google].
There are first malicious programmers that try to infiltrate mozilla users. An example ist http://xxxtoolbar.com/ (sexually explicit!) that tries to install an "toolbar" per XPI. Fortunately this needs an Win32 system and a users who clicks without thinking.
Have you ever seen an signed mozilla extension?
Seriously, I suspect that anyone who know what CERT is already runs Mozilla (or at least know he should). More significant is that this is on the Washington Post. With all respect for CERT, the mainstream press is what we need here.
That is how long I give Microsoft before they find themselves confronted by a revolution from their users due the their inability to deliver secure products.
Instead of spending their effort trying to destroy their competitors (which, today, means open source software), Microsoft should be closing the gap.
Yes, all software has potential insecurities. Yes, Microsoft is targetted because they are the dominant monoculture.
But no, this changes nothing. A burglar will always go for the easiest target, and Microsoft users will always be the target so long as Windows et al. is even just slightly less secure than the alternatives.
Microsoft should release a service pack to Windows that sets the security settings on MSIE to their highest levels, even at the risk of breaking many web sites. They should sponsor anti-spyware software developers with large prizes for the best anti-spyware software. They should be talking to major ISPs for ways to detect and disable zombies.
Redmond, listen: Make Windows Secure.
Otherwise you will be tarred and feathered by your long-suffering users who will prefer any viable alternative to one more "surf at your own risk" experience.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
CERT have suggested using a different browser before (e.g. here).
I wouldn't read too much into it myself though. If one browser has a vulnerability, and another doesn't, surely it's an obvious thing to suggest? And in the past, they've pointed out the potential problems with not using IE (i.e. incompatibilities with IE-dependent sites). More a suggestion than a recommendation I'd say.
I use Outlook web access with no problem using Firefox, all the time. Sure, it doesn't use the active-x and it doesn't have all the bell and whistles, but all the functionality is pretty much there (Mail, calendar, etc).
Jennifer Scharff, vice president of marketing for MinervaHealth, said some of the company's clients reported the problem on Thursday. The company has since fixed its site, she said. Scharff said no more than 50 visitors browsed the Web site during the time it was serving up the hostile code.
I had never heard of the company, but is it realistic that only 50 visitors browsed the site after it had been cracked? That seems very low, especially for a problem which was previously unknown to the Virus scanners.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Recommending explorer users to use mozilla/firefox is fine.
From the article
The attack takes advantage of several recently discovered security flaws in Microsoft's Internet browser and Internet Information Services Web software. Microsoft released a patch in April to fix one security hole in its Internet browser; the company is still working on a patch for the other flaw, which security researchers publicly detailed less than two weeks ago.
But a recommendation for the people running web servers that are vulnerable to this attack would *really* have been more useful. Excuse me if there's already some recommendation (Having a link to that in the news item'd have been better in that case)
And while you are at it you may wish to change the security settings for your "My Computer" zone.
u rr entVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0
Read this:
Description of Internet Explorer security zones registry entries
Then edit the relevant key (if you don't know how, then you should just switch to using a different O/S or browser):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\C
Change Flags from 0x21 to 0x01 to make it visible.
Once you do that you can more easily change the security settings for the My Computer zone.
You could also add your own custom zone, but if you have to ask me how to do it, you shouldn't.
Note that while disabling javascript and stuff in the My Computer zone protects you from numerous IE exploits[1], the web style windows explorer and other stuff require active scripting and other stuff to be enabled. So you would have to switch to the classic style. I don't see what benefits the web style has - other than make monitor/LCD vendors happy - it takes up more screen space.
[1] many attacks involve cross zone exploits with the aim of running the exploit in the My Computer zone which has lower security levels by default - raising the security levels e.g. requiring prompts before active-X stuff is run, disabling active scripting (I see very little need for scripts to be enabled on locally stored HTML pages, heck I see very little need for most websites to use javascript).
The issue is two fold... One, they are able to force IIS (only IIS) to serve out a footer to every html, jpeg, etc. that the web server sends out. This then contains code that then executes on the browser. This isn't just Internet Explorers fault, it is the company's fault that uses IIS to serve out it's web pages. We have long since known that IIS is not secure, and yet still we have major sites that use this for their front end. I am not sure, but couldn't a reverse proxy stop this from happening at all? Aren't the major web sites responsible for serving out viral web pages. My problem is this: You cannot browse all of the web with only mozilla. You must use IE to browse some sites, or they don't look right. The content is sometimes unreadable without IE. I agree that Mozilla is comparable. I use both. I recently designed a site for a company, and the hardest part was getting it to look right in IE, Mozilla, and Opera. But when it was done, I knew that it was done right. This is the problem. Web designers don't want to take the time to worry about standards compliancy. The statistics still say that around 80% of all browsers are IE. Why would they need to worry that much, all of the people reviewing the sites are using IE (executives and marketing). We are not going to get all users, or even the majority of users to switch to Mozilla, they have been using IE for years and as some of you have said, some users still think that "E" stands for the internet. It is going to take time. What I think we really need is to stop relying on Microsoft to be the internet facing web applications. They can be the business worlds desktop, and even the enterprise servers, but they cannot continue to be the web facing application servers.
and send it registered mail to your bank. Notify them that continued use of insecure servers, and requiring you as a customer to use an insecure webrowser, could lead to a compromise of your personal data and a direct loss. It's not a threat, just a stement of actual, probable data. And if such an event occurs, that you would consider taking legal action against them. Maybe that will get their attention. And if you are a stockholder in the bank, or have a valuable mortgage there, or other serious busines, it's even worse.
I don't do online banking but if I did and that was part of it,forcing me to *use* grade c products, and having to *trust* grade c products, at a place that HAS to consider "security threats" over almost anything else, I would have long ago called up and kvetched about it or sent a missive along the lines I have outlined.
Think about it, how many people would trust a bank if it had no doors, it was running in the seediest section of town with obvious scoundrels hanging around the entrance, the vault was open,no security guard in sight, and if they forced you to come in blindfolded, turn over the keys to your car to one of the characters hanging around the opening where no door is, and to trust whatever happened then to you and your money as you came and went? No one would put up with that, but in the cyberworld, that is *exactly* what is going on all the time with these insecure out of the box office/internet "products" from that convicted monopolist corporation and with their co-opted and faked out business "partners". You would THINK after the 983rd time something like this happened that they would have bought a clue or two. And it just gets worse, all the time, it hasn't gotten any better, just the exploits get better, and paying for the privelege of getting exploited costs more.
Good idea for a geek cyberbank, BTW, that runs only better quality open source, and refuses entrance with explorer browser, and gives a helpful page where to get the alternatives. Niche market, but I bet it would get decent business over-all.
Credit is being given where credit belongs. The softies can try to spin this, but they will fail as there is little hope for them to fix their platform's underlying design flaws. Microsoft remains a security dissaster.
While no one will tell you that free software is immune to attack, they can tell you that free software users are not monthly victims attacks that take advantage of moronic software design. Can anyone point to a single free software worm that auto propagated?
The variety of free software and it's quality makes such stuff very difficult to design. Imagine that you did find an exploit for a popular linux desktop that could propagate itself. Right away, you are limited to less than half of the linux population. I use KDE, others use Gnome, Window Maker, OLVWM and so on to console emacs. Typically, news of the exploit is trumpted with bug fixes and patches. Problem solved, usually without loss of data.
The widespread, spam sending, net threatening DoS attacks that we have seen on the Microsoft monoculture won't happen with free software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
we would instatly switch to using firefox if they added support for proxy autoconfiguration via wpad. (either DNS or dhcp based wpad would be fine). We have laptops that need to be able to pick up their proxy configs automatically since they roam between offices....
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Time is on my side
Robyn Eckard, a spokeswoman for the Irvine, Calif.-based Kelley Blue Book, said the company learned about the problem late Wednesday after Web site visitors said their antivirus software tipped them off to the code. Eckard said Kelly Blue Book removed the malicious code from its site by late Thursday afternoon.
There wasn't any mention of their site being down so that means a period of what could be almost a full day where they knew their website was infecting customers with this virus but continued to let it run. Are they really allowed to do that? Perhaps they figgured the bad PR or loss of buisness from their site being down would be greater than the bad PR and loss of buisness by their customers being infected by this thing then possibly robbed when their bank info was lifted. Perhaps the article was just mistaken, google returns multiple sites and at netcraft I can't make heads or tails of the first one but the second site appears to have remained up could they be charged for this it seems kinda like one of those people with AIDS who doesn't tell partners thier infected and goes around having unprotected sex.
I stole this Sig
How many people do you think actually look to CERT before choosing what web browser to use? And among that group of people, how many are already using an alternative browser?
The quote is so rich, I think I'll include it.
CERT recommends that Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by the attack, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera. Mac, Linux and other non-Windows operating systems are immune from this attack. For people who continue to use the Internet Explorer, CERT and Microsoft recommend setting the browser's security settings to "high," but that can impair some browsing functions.
Good bye, anti-competitive little nasty. IE was M$'s attempt to push it's desktop monopoly into the web. I'm going to be so happy when I quit running into pages that ignorantly tell me they are best viewed in IE. With it will go a whole host of proprietary crap.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
1. Get Firesomething extension for Firefox 0.9
2. In the dialog box, remove "Mozilla" vendor and add "Microsoft". Remove all prefixes also and add "Internet". Remove all names and add "_Explorer" (substitute the underline for a leading space). Enable the "single name mode". Apply.
3. While you are at it, get the Luna Blue 0.4 theme from http://www.intraplanar.net/projects/lunablue/
4. Adjust the icons so they look really like explorer. The order should be back, forward, STOP, RELOAD, home, separator, favourites, history, separator, mail, print
5. Rename the shortcut to "Internet Explorer" and change the icon to the blue "e" (do this on the Desktop and Quick Launch bar as well)
6. Never again worry about worms.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
This particular vulnerability has been patched for two months (MS04-011). Had the administrators applied that patch when it becase available this would have been half fixed. Then all you'd need to do is get an IE fix. And then that would be the end of this particular issue. Since the patch existed before any known use of the exploit, the blame is squarely on the shoulders of two groups: (1) the malware author(s) themselves; and, (2) the lazy sysetm administrator too slow or stupid to deploy the patch in a timely manner.
Really, this is an issue settled by termination of the employee responsible for not keeping a good record of patches and updates. Of course, that still leaves the IE problem, but with the IE team recently recreated, probably for Longhorn, but perhaps they're therer just to release an update to IE to fix this type of crap, we may see the end of these types of things. If only people would quite exploiting innocent code... Sadly, people left to their own devices will revert to base and vile activities, then add in the anonymity of the internet, you get the jerks who think it's fun to spoil the party for everyone.
If there isn't a patch for the IE hole yet, there can't possibly be an exploit in the wild
*Google shows a slight upswing in Gecko marketshare in the last couple of months
*Firefox 0.9 is an awesome release, and 1.0 promises to be a killer
*Mozilla foundation hires former Netscape marketing guy and also starts major grassroots marketing effort
*MSIE is hit with more security vuln's than ever before
*More and more mainstream tech news outlets start recommending firefox
*Microsoft is sufficiently scared to reconstitute MSIE dev team
Could this be the beginning of another round of browser wars??!!
The shareholder is always right.
Explain please.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1) not that I know of
2) use the firefox password manager (it is built in)
3) try adding a bookmark to yahoo, removing the search criteria from the url and replacing it with %s. then assign it a keyword.
that way you can just type.. 'yahoo searchciteriahere'
4) groups of tabs. add the group of tabs to a bookmark folder, right click the folder and open all tabs
5) try the adblock firefox extention. it is on the extention website.
there has never been a better time to try it IMO
1 Ability of running any Windows shortcut or folder within the browser or explorer.
Firefox is a web browser. Are your computer running a web server, and if not, why would you expect your web browser to be able to 'explore' your folders in the browser view?. Try "Open file". There, you can "explore" and "open" at your leisure.
2) Autologin of websites (form filling-username, pass)
Security hazard. I don't care how much you think this is a great idea; it isn't. Sometimes us developers must protect you against yourselves.
3) Make your own search engines (like if I want to add yahoo maps and all i type is the destination)
I just put all the search engines I like in a HTML-page that is my default page. What you want is trivial to do in Opera BTW, and probably in FF too (after all, there's always the source, worst case).
4) "Groups" of websites that open in tabs at the same time
This is standard. Are you trolling? Open bookmark folder, click "Open in tabs". What a waste of time.
5) In-line Flash/Advertsing blocks
Plugin: Adblock
It should also be noted that Apache is open source, meaning you can actually go look at the code to look for possible ways to exploit possible bugs/security flaws. The same doesn't happen with Microsoft's IIS and yet it is still more vulnerable than Apache is...
I am a speak english. Do you not? - Saroto
Switching browsers browsers is not enough. Who knows, Mozilla could be the target of some malware tomorrow. Switching to Mozilla just buys you some time.
To be more secure we need an OS that prevents the browser from executing unauthorized code and prevents the browser from accesing sensitive information or applications on our systems. The browser should not be allowed to be the only layer of security.
One way would be to swich to some Linux, using a distro that make use of the SELinux stuff enables mandatory access control and set up a good security policy.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
"So how do you explain that it is IIS and not apache that is being attacked?"
[*] Apache is more secure than IIS. That's a fact, but it's different to saying that all open-source software is more secure. It certainly doens't prove that linux is more secure than windows (although other evidence certainly does)
[*] Apache runs more websites, but lots of those are on the same computer. My website runs on the same Apache server as 2782 other websites. My sourceforge websites run on the same Apache server as 83000 other websites. Domain-squatters run tens of thousands of "websites" from one Apache server. So you only need one competent admin, and suddenly thousands of Apache websites are secure.
[*] I think IIS can tend to expose more services than Apache -- most people setting up Apache are running an HTTP or HTTPS server, and they think long and hard and read documentation before expanding it to run more services than that. I've not used IIS, but I imagine that it's easy and tempting to run everything from windows workgroups to DNS to email servers at the click of a checkbox and without any need to understand what's being created. Perhaps there's a lack of care among IIS admins contributing to the problem?
to complete the answers you have so far
3. see here for documentation on how to make your own Mozilla search plugins.
5. Besides the already-mentioned Adblock plugin, use Flash Click To View to replace flash with a button you can 'click to view'.
Write to their feedback page, letters to the editor, or ombudsman. Tell them: 1) their failure to mention that this only affects Windows users running IE needlessly worries people using other OSes and browsers, and 2) their failure to mention alternative browsers means they missed an opportunity to assist the general public on an important matter.
I did. I also did this a couple of years ago when some Windows virus came out (can't remember which one -- there are so many) and CNN failed to mention it was a Windows-only problem. The next time a major virus came out (I think it was a few weeks), I noticed that CNN actually mentioned that non-Windows users were not at risk.
Obviously, we need to keep reminding them.
Oh, and if you do, be polite!!!
(And if you already did, then good for you! And my apologies for implying you didn't.)
Gates fussy over security in Sydney
Couple of choice quotes:
"The Microsoft co-founder and one of the world's richest men is in Sydney today for a press appearance so tightly scripted and controlled it could have been orchestrated by US President George W. Bush's media office."
"At least the assembled do not have to submit their retinas or fingerprints for scanning - possibly because Microsoft can't come to grips with good security."
"Those running the market-leading open source Apache web server, who use desktop operating systems such as Mac OS X or GNU/Linux, or Windows web browsers other than Explorer (such as Opera or Mozilla) were inoculated from the virus."
There's quite a bit more, all fun reading.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
1) Ability of running any Windows shortcut or folder within the browser or explorer.
You absolutely do not want this. The mingling of file browser and web browser are what cause a huge number of IE security holes.
You could probably just set up a helper or something, but you don't want to. Really. Mozilla is not a file manager.
2) Autologin of websites (form filling-username, pass)
Exists, and I've seen it, but I don't know what plugin to use. IIRC Mozilla has this built-in.
3) Make your own search engines (like if I want to add yahoo maps and all i type is the destination)
Firefox rocks at this. Do a search, bookmark it, and replace the query text in the address field in the bookmark's properties with "%s", and then give it an alias (say, "gg"). If I did this with a Google search, I can just type "gg foobar" to Google for "foobar". I have imdb, google, and tons of other databases usable through Firefox directly. Absolutely wonderful.
4) "Groups" of websites that open in tabs at the same time
Create a folder in your bookmarks, and choose the menu item "open in tabs" for that folder under the Boomarks menu in Firefox.
5) In-line Flash/Advertsing blocks (I noticed one of Achilles' Heels of FF is that it eats
cpu like crazy when flash is used on the page)
You want Click to View.
May we never see th
It have only been majorly exploted for 10 months. The fault goes back to 1995. We are lucky that our current population of Hackers did not use it well before now. We are verry lucky that we don't have a good population of Hackers most are script kiddys that don't know how to find these back doors and pick on them.
The big question is how many times it has been used to get information out of companys.
Basicly it effects win 95+ I still have to test ie6sp1 to see of a javascript can still buffer overflow and crash the machine like to use to. But that one worked also from 1995 and was reported in 1995 1996 1998 by me same sample code and no fix even in 6 just have not tested 6sp1 for it. Basicly I have been wasting my breath telling them they do nothing.
There is a short form of the responce you are not ment to code a webpage like that.
My code did not follow coding rules correct yes but a cracker does not have to flow rules it just has to work. The funny part is that the code works flawlessly with Netscape and Mozilla and Netscape created Javascript(ie the standard).
Now I get into trouble because I hate Microsoft and people cannot understand why ie you must be a zelot or something. No I am not a Zelot I just hate people not fixing problems I report.
Also I wish people would stop reporting directly to microsoft but start reporting in the press. It seams to be the only way to get them off there tail.
Please note a lot of problems inside IE extend back to them not flowing standard or breaking them for a pratical reason.(them controling the market).
The most effect way to explot this back door is to send a email containing a automatic direct link to the web site and install the spyware. Nice little ie flaw merged with a nice little outlook express flaw creating Access to a machine to extract data.
The Cracker uses of this have been heavyly over looked for far to long. If you are using outlook or IE change now.
I have been using Opera for a couple of years.
After gaining a bit of comfort for Opera, I disabled Internet Exploder. I disabled all features, everyone, ActiveXploiter, Java, Javascript, etc., and then set the proxy for all protocols to 127.0.0.1 port 7777 which means it can't access anything.
I also do almost everything from an account (WinXP lite) without admin privs which means some apps don't work because they can't access the registry.
Yesterday while browsing the net, the system really slowed down and I found from a netstat that there were hundreds of connections to all sorts of IP addresses to Microsoft-DS (445). Although I had recently updated the patches, I discovered after fighting to kill off the processes generating these connections that there were seven more "critical updates". I'm normally looking at all sorts of websites doing research on a dozen different, but social policy related topics, so I had a lot of web pages active and I have no idea which of a dozen or more might have been the source of the infection.
Bottom line:
-Microsoft sucks
-I don't know how and don't have the info to figure it out, but even with IE disabled and using Opera, its still possible to get infected
-Microsoft sucks
I don't think there is anything which makes microsoft software "inherently" more insecure.
Microsoft tends to like big programs which try to do lots of things, with lots of threading for multi-tasking. IIS does plenty of things other than web serving... On top of this there is Microsoft deliberatly writing "sphagetti code" in the name of "integration".
Given enough time and effort microsoft products, like any piece of software has the potential to be bullet proof.
It would be a case of rewriting more or less from scratch.