Slashdot Mirror
Major Browsers Have JS Pop-Up Flaw
An anonymous reader writes "Secunia is warning that several popular browsers contain a vulnerability that could allow a phishing attack. 'The problem is that JavaScript dialog boxes do not display or include their origin, which allows a new window to open -- for example, a prompt dialog box -- which appears to be from a trusted site,' Secunia said. The browsers include the latest versions of IE, IE for Mac, Safari, iCab, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Camino. Opera 7 and 8 are also affected but not 8.01."
Opera 8.01 was released June 18th.... (only a few days ago)
//tin-foil hat engaged
It is the only browser not affected....
And now this leaked out where reports can only say that one browser does not suffer from this issue.
...and they're not going to release a patch for it.
;)
And you *know* that if Microsoft says it's not a flaw, well, then, it mustn't be a flaw.
libertarianswag.com
Ever get rooked into going to a website with perpetual Javascript pompts? I love those.
The only way out of them is to kill your browser process outright.
This is a prime opportunity for mozilla developers to do a slight tweak to the prompts. a "kill all javscript for the rest of this session" button, etc.
It seems to have been forgotten, or deferred.
It cracks me up, because they probably have an obsessive/compulsive, socially-maligned programmer within Secunia that just delights spending 16 hours a day trying to twist the browsers into doing what he wants. And then Secunia announces these flaws to save their reputation because nothing else is going on.
Thank god I don't browse the web!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
It's not even a bug.
; ;
/., stop supporting Opera FUD. Thanks.
It's advertising and FUD from those Opera guys. They are really getting boring.
- Opera adds a feature that shows the name of the site in the title bar in their last build
- Someone at Opera reports it (under a false name) as a security issue affecting every browser BUT Opera
- Slashdot runs one more article about the genious of this stupid paid-for, closed source browser.
That's not the first time it happens, nor the last one.
It corresponds to say.. running a browser, a spreadheet and say a game at same time and then getting a dialog box that is not identifiable saying "Do you want to save?".
Different problems of this sort will only raise as more and more applications are run as web based. Today it is popups that are not identified, tomorrow something else.
My front door has a major flaw, in that con artist can walk up to it and claim they are from and officially federal agency and have an urgent need for me to help them.
Doors from major outlets, including those of Lowe's and Home Depot, are affected by this flaw. Our investigations have determined that this flaw has been known for years, yet the major distributors have not plans to release an update to correct the problem.
US Senator, C. Ritter has introduce legislation under the title "Omnibus Weak Nutz United", the OWN-U bill, that seeks to station a security agent to watch over every door in the case the occupants cannot determine that they are being conned.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Easier to use an extension like NoScript - a javascript permission whitelist - to selectively allow pages to run scripts, then control passes to where it should be - the user
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
People should stop developing with JavaScript. It's nothing but trouble.
Poppycock. This is nothing more than a typical knee-jerk reaction to a minor security flaw. Should we all stop using email because phisers can craft ones that look like someone elses?
Lots of sites use JavaScript very effectively. So many in fact, that it's rather difficult to make such a wild statement as "JAvascript is nothing but trouble." Google is a perfect example of a highly useful site with JS. For example, Maps and GMail both rely heavily on JS. In fact, most webmail sites contain JS. And without JS, you couldn't have neat stuff like this. (Login is test, test)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Thank god I don't own a computer!
Javascript is very useful to creating rich web applications that don't have to reload the pages. Seen Google maps or Gmail? How do you think they did that?
I agree that Javascript should not nessicarily be required to view content on a general website but properly used it gives a whole new dimension to web apps.
People give the guns and P2P analogy all the time here: they both have proper uses and improper uses and banning them, or not using them because they have improper uses makes no sense. How is Javascript any different?
The Anti-Blog
I know the Mozilla devs were talking about this a few weeks back on one of the lists. They said they didn't consider it a severe security issue yet, but were working on the engine so that popups would be tab and window modal. They've also added pieces to the plugin interface so that plugin developers (Flash and Java for instance) can honor Mozilla's popup blocking.
Currently, if you're popup blocking for all but trusted sites you should be relatively safe from this. It really is hard to prevent phishing attacks though. They attack the users judgement, which unfortunately tends to be the weakest link.
If Secunia is reporting it, why not link directly to Secunia?
n _vulnerability_test
http://secunia.com/multiple_browsers_dialog_origi
I've never understood the reason to link to ZDnet first. Especially when we are all a technical crowd and can deduce the severity on our own.
In my own opinion, the security community has been really scrambling to find exploits and vulnerabilities since the release of Windows XP SP2, which, despite a lot of compatibility issues with common software, has been very effective in slowing down the growth of zombie networks. In short, Microsoft finally got something right, and those that are in IT security for the sole reason of bashing MS to make a buck, are having a hard time doing so.
This is a phising technique that can be used to get a username/password from like a credit card or bank website, but that's about it. You'd be hard pressed to get this to compromise a local machine, although I'm interested in what would happen if someone tried calling a local zone page (like a help file) and then executing the javascript from that page. There was a similar exploit that used this delayed tactic last year that Microsoft didn't fix for probably 3 months. It was a 0-day exploit too, it was found in the wild, spreading via IRC, before anyone reported the vulnerability.
Open about:config . You'll probably have to type that, Mozilla won't follow it from an http: URL.
Key in dom.disable_window_open_feature as a filter.
Change the value for location to true. In Firefox, just double-click the false and it will toggle. Mozilla you need to edit it and actually type in all four letters of true. (But I'm happier with the Mozilla suite at the office, so I live with it.)
Change any other values to true that you feel like; I'd be inclined to do status, resizable, close and menubar at a minimum.
Now the location will be visible in any pop-up window.
So the very first thing the Moz group should do is default some of this stuff to true instead of pander to controlling webmasters who want to take over the user's computer. I mean false.
Thank god I telnet to port 80 and parse it in my head
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
b) You can certainly use unsafe C contructs in ObjC, but ObjC provides (and encourages) safe, non-C constructs that address the vast majority of C problems. Unsafe pointer and buffer operations are rare in ObjC, because the language provides better alternatives.
c) "Many cases slower than Java" is the sort of unsupportable bullshit that people make when they're trolling. Yes, message passing is slower than virtual function calls (and Javas are [much,much] slower than C++s vcalls).
/me puts on a pair of shades.
I tried it out on Konqueror 3.4.0 and it is also affected. The only minor change is a blank popup window opening together with the javascript query.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
I want a window manager that draws lines between parent/child windows, parent/child processes. While we're at it, how about one that lets me click one window, then drag all the windows in the group as one, maintaining relative position? Yeah, I want to drag windows around, and save their positions with the window manager, then open that state with a single click on a desktop menu. While we're at it, I want the groups to include arbitrary windows from multiple apps. So I can open a "workplace", and immediately begin working in a familiar environment. If this works, how about letting me drag a line from any window to another, piping STDIN/OUT/ERR between processes? If I can minimize the windows into icons, my window manager is now a visual programming environment. Which, to come full circle, could let me as a user tell by looking which info is tainted by which untrusted windows and datapaths, including innocent-looking JS popup windows.
--
make install -not war
Ah, the evil Opera! I get it.
Asa? Is that you? Why are you posting as an AC?!Clever signature text goes here.