Slashdot Mirror
System Exploitable With USB
Anonymous Coward writes "Vulnerabilities in USB drivers for Windows could allow an attacker to take control of locked workstations using a specially programmed Universal Serial Bus device." From the article: "The buffer-overflow flaw is in device drivers that Windows loads whenever USB devices are inserted into computers running Windows 32-bit operating systems, including Windows XP and Windows 2000, said Caleb Sima, chief technology officer and founder of SPI Dynamics."
Every time I bag out Microsoft, some git comes to their defence, telling me it's all hype, they're unfairly picked on, that bill gates donates lots to charity, so MS is OK.
And yet more MS insecurities pop up.
*yawn*. I'm sick of being right.
What would be funny is if Vista had this bug when it shipped...
95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
Computers with physical access are susceptible to "unintended root-level access".
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
This is similar to an early security flaw in windows though I forget precisely which Windows versions it was, 95 and earlier I suspect. It was possible to write a program that would autorun from an inserted CD and copy the screen saver password file to a floppy from where it could be later cracked at leisure.
Not many people awake yet to read this?
Maybe their locked workstations have been compromised!
Uh wait a second, why am I getting popups for warez at http://127.0.0.1/?
From the summary and the article:
Vulnerabilities in USB drivers for Windows...The buffer-overflow flaw is in device drivers that Windows loads...running Windows 32-bit operating systems, including Windows XP and Windows 2000...
The article then goes on to say:
However, the flaw is with USB, not Windows, said David Dewey, a research engineer at SPI.
Really, how serious a threat is this? If someone has unrestricted physical access to your machine then you're already in serious trouble. We all know how breakable the NTFS file encryption is, so if they really want to get at your files, they can just reboot into Fedora from a CD, or run any other tool that circumvents the encryption. If they just want to destroy data then you can put a hammer through the hard drive, and no OS can prevent that... So, I'm not saying that this vulnerability shouldn't be fixed, but maybe they should work on making NTFS a bit stronger first - if that's even possible.
Also, does anyone else think Slashdot should have a special section for buffer overflows? They seem to spawn more stories than several of the other sections...
apterous.org
'plug and play' hacking .....
Flaws found in device drivers shipped with Windows, Microsoft recommends upgrading to Vista!
"What would be funny is if Vista had this bug when it shipped..." Hey there, this is microsoft, in order for us to not get sued we need you to use "Windows" in cojuction with the word "Vista". So please kindly edit your post, you wouldnt want us to get sued, would you? darling? sweety?
Oddly enough, this isn't a particularly new idea. The Xbox Linux project considered the possibility of using a specially-designed USB device to run code on the Xbox, though I don't think they managed to find a suitable vunerability to exploit (unlike now). I wonder if this works for the Xbox, actually - it's Windows 2000 based IIRC...
Sadly enough it is not at all suprising that Slashdot immediately goes for the anti-Windows slant rather than actually reading and comprehending the article and exploit in question. Too few actual axploits in Windows as of late to get up to the required quota perhaps?
In a more direct comment about the "exploit" I don't consider it terribly important, hardware access leads to a lot of trivial expoits. This one can be made more user-friendly than most with appropriate hardware, but it is not really worse than just inserting a boot CD that copies the relevant data to a secure server or so. It can also of course easily be fixed by disallowing loading of USB drivers without confirmation from the user.
USB flash drives are already quite highly accepted amongst non-technical users; both my parents have bought pendrives, as have many of my friends. They're quite comfortable with just popping in the drive, waiting for the OS to see it, and grabbing files off it.
So, what if someone handed them a pendrive and asked them to grab some files from it, and it turns out that this pendrive would cause an attack like this? One could be switched by a black-hat, or planted, or mailed... put simply, the attacker wouldn't need physical access, just access to someone who does.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Ya, if you throw them hard enough XD
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
BIOS? No problem, pop the reset jumper on the motherboard, and all the BIOS settings, including password and boot restrictions, are gone. When someone has physical access, they can get root/admin, if given the time. Our UNIX admin always maintains this philsophy, that anyone who has access to our servers can get root on them. So our security is not designed to make that impossible, but to make it hard enough and watched enough that we notice when someone tries it, and can go any confront them.
This reminds me of the vulnerabilities discovered in linux (and other systems) concerning firewire; Since Firewire devices can read and write directly to the computers memory, you can do some nasty stuff. The issues are documented on the website of the german CCC: http://www.ccc.de/congress/2004/fahrplan/event/14. de.html
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
How come these things still happen? Lazy programmers? Crappy x86 archtecture? These self-created problems should still be around.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
A bios option to diable USB would be nice. especially in an enviroment that doesn't need USB for anything.
A lot of systems do not have the option.
Who run Barter Town?
A: No. Of course not. Well... okay sorta. If you buy Microsoft DRM [t.m.] Technology Approved USB Devices you'll be just fine. Oh and by the way, Microsoft DRM [t.m.] Technology Approved USB Devices will be required for all USB usage under Windows Vista. It's for the benefit of You, The Customer [t.m.]specifically. Honest. No attempting to lock you out of moving your content elsewhere, no sir.
"SPI tested attacks on Windows systems, but any operating system that is USB-compliant is probably vulnerable, he said."
Luckily I still run DOS. Most secure system evah.
See pictures of tits
Given enough time and resources, I have physical access to anything. If your computer is in a locked case, is that physically secure? In a lab that is always staffed? Behind a locked door? With a guard?
For many situations, a computer with a locked case in a room that is staffed is considered "physically secure", as it's not likely that you'll break the physical security (lock on the case) without attracting the attention of the staff. Hell, even a computer in a staffed room in a case that has screws on it is fairly physically secure. The USB problem circumvents the physical security.
Security is all about deterrent. My apartment has a dead bolt lock on the door. Does this mean it's impossible to break into my apartment? Of course not - it just makes it harder.
Being able to break security on a locked computer with a USB drive is like leaving the key to your apartment under your door mat.
paintball
If the problem truly lies in the USB standard, wouldn't other operating systems that implement USB also be affected? "multi latform exploit" ... kinda makes you just wanna drop your other projects and get to coding that proof of concept doesn't it?
Really, how serious a threat is this? If someone has unrestricted physical access to your machine then you're already in serious trouble.
Surprise, it's just a little more sensationalism at eWeek. If this weren't somehow related to Microsoft Windows, then it might not have been given a front page reference here at Slashdot. Corporate espionage and cyberterrorism, oh my!
Perhaps it's intended to evoke an image of a man standing at a workstation and inserting a USB device that automatically captures all of the corporate trade secrets. It's only going to frighten those who are uninformed, as you've effectively described the entire problem. Unless the organization in charge has established an extremely secure physical environment, then their sensitive information will always be susceptible to physical espionage.
If their only layer of protection is provided by a locked Windows workstation, then a network-based attack might prove itself both less expensive and more effective, anyway.
Do you like German cars?
I'm pretty sure they only mean XP, considering that Windows 2000 won't be able to use the brand new l33t IE7. With security enhancements that are only possible using the Windows XP operating system! ALSO user of IE 7 may not be able to view half the websites on the internet, but at least they are secure, unless they have a usb device!!! :)
See it here"
In this case:
TheGeek: I'm going to plug in this USB device.
TheGeek (take aback): Woooooaoooooo!!!
Bill: Urmm..hehee, yes...that's the single sign on feature we have.
Are you being sarcastic?
in Windows NT!! :)
is part of http://www.igd.fhg.de/igd-a8/projects/coseda/index .html
So you could hack up USB device (e.g. a flash), send it to a company, and kaboom.
Or leave a few lying around at Starbucks (like the exploding toy-like objects the Soviets dropped on Afghanistan).
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I really wouldn't give these guys the publicity at this point.
They haven't explained what the problem really is, to us, or even filed a report with Microsoft.
They also claim that any OS is vulnerable, though it's only been tested with Windows drivers.
The whole thing just stinks of someone wanting publicity or setting up to try to sell some protection software.
Ive known that most any system that can boot from usb was vulnerable for at least a year now. I keep DSL on my thumbdrive and need to get it onto my ipod shuffle now too.
Scott Swezey
So, in theory, a virus or a backdoor could be installed via hardware? Plug in your new USB mouse and your system is compromised... nice one.
Does it go on forever?
You don't sound very sincere.
The article does make an excellent point: any hot-pluggable device (USB, Firewire, PCMCIA, etc) is a potential attack vector if it is possible for a malicious device to expolit vulnerabilities in the host operating system's drivers. An attacker could exploit this weakness to extract data from a locked workstation without leaving any obvious evidence.
That said, any buffer-overflow vulnerabilities in the USB/Firewire/PCMCIA/whatever drivers are problems with the operating system itself.
I can't wait to see a demonstration. Sounds kinda cool.
a usb dongle with a knoppix on it, a knoppix CD a linux boot floppy, dude, if I have physical access to your machine I dont care what the OS is doing, the data inside is fracking mine.
hell I have a linux laptop and a usb-IDE cable. I'll simply pry open the case, pop the cable off your drive, put it on the USB device and then dump the data off to my laptop if all other attacks fail.
the ONLY way to protect your data is to have it encrypted on the drive. those encryption sleds for hard drives are a good start but noboy uses them, just like encrypted filesystems.
people do not like to haveto enter passphrases after they login to access their data.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you get close enough to plug in a USB device, you're close enough to boot it to a crack CD and a) wipe the system b) blank the admin password c) take all the data (and copy it to a USB device.
This is not true unless you let users install drivers themselves. Any reasonable administrator have allready blocked this in their default windows installation!
now i can convince my wife she can be a hacker too
me: "yes honey....just plug this device over here.....yup..u just hacked the system...congrats"
she: "this is l33t"
The lunatic is in my head
It seems obvious that this can affect any OS, and is due to the poor design of USB- If a device posts a number, then the system assumes it's such-and-such, and loads the driver. Which probably has bugs. So, how do We (that is Open Source system developers) deal with this?
Of course 1. is to make sure that all drivers in our trees have no overflow bugs. Or any others, or course. This takes work, but we now know that it is needed. You cannot trust any info that a USB device gives us. Shoulda known.
Of course, some painful hardware vendors will _insist_ on providing only binary drivers. Am I alone in thinking that running these as root, melding thrse with no less than the system kernel, is unacceptable? So a fast, secure universal usb interface is needed. I know I have ugen in FreeBSD, and I hope it's secure, but is it fast enough for pedantic hardware vendors? What's the linux situation look like? As you are the ones that have been provided with binary USB drivers, what do these look like?
And, no, i do not like the idea of running any binary only code. But at least we need to sandbox it off, and reduce it's permissions.
So, what does everyone think can be done?
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
It's good to see that we FINALLY have a way to autorun from USB. We've only been asking for this feature since Windows 98.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
wow if you have physical access to the computer there are many ways to get into it... like boot CD's and password changers for windows. Yes i know about bios and you can change that and then lock bios but all you have to do is pop the bios battery or reset the bios what is usually the red jumper and u then are good to go... but if u are on a mac u can plug into a other computer boot the computer as a firewire device and it is full access (are they going to inform us all about this now and take credit for it?) but now tell me if you are at the work station that would be more of an issue with you forgetting to lock the damn door more than evil hacker getting into your computer by the wonderful world wide web...
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
Considering an operating system can be exploited using bugs in the operating system, I'm curious what other exploits exist in other drivers. Possibly network interface card or firewire drivers.
Lets see... You have physcial access to the machine and you can exploit it.. Wow. thats really news. *yawn*
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Original URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/27/device_dri ver_flaws/ Device drivers filled with flaws
By Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus (tips at securityfocus.com)
Published Friday 27th May 2005 13:48 GMT
The uneven skills of driver programmers have left a legion of holes in software that ships with Windows and Linux, security experts say.
Operating system vendors and hardware makers should commit more resources toward systematically auditing Windows and Linux device-driver code for flaws, security researchers say.
While buffer overflows, a type of memory flaw that can lead to serious vulnerabilities, are quickly being eradicated in critical applications, the flaws are still easily found in device drivers, said David Maynor, a research engineer for Internet Security Systems' X-Force vulnerability analysis group.
"If you look through the device driver code, there are a lot of problems," he said in a recent interview. "The state of the code's security is not strong." During a few hours on a recent plane flight, for example, Maynor found more than a dozen glitches in several Windows XP drivers.
Windows is not the only operating system at risk. A survey of the Linux 2.6.9 kernel code performed by automated-code-checking software maker Coverity found that, while the overall quality of the code had increased significantly, more than 50 per cent of flaws appeared in device drivers. Many of those flaws may not affect system security, but the ratio is generally indicative of the quality of the code, said Seth Hallem, CEO of Coverity.
"The people writing the device drivers are not generally the core programmers," he said. "It is not the operating-system implementers themselves - the Linux programmers or Windows developers - it is generally the vendors."
The warnings come as operating-system developers have placed security higher on their to-do lists. While the Windows and Linux operating systems have both undergone significant audits in the past several years, many device drivers - especially those created by third-party hardware providers - have seemingly escaped rigorous testing.
Microsoft acknowledged the threat but stated that the company's developers had already started checking drivers that have been shipped with Windows for flaws.
"Microsoft is aware of a scenario by which an attacker could attack an existing software vulnerability in a device driver (and) could compromise a user's system," the software giant said in a statement to SecurityFocus. "It's important to note that Microsoft's software development processes do cover instances where third party code included with the operating system may be reviewed before the code ships with Windows to help ensure that customers are not at risk from this type of threat."
Microsoft has also moved forward with development efforts to harden device drivers, according to sources familiar with the initiative. However, the company remained closed-lipped about the details of the effort.
Device driver flaws can be more dangerous than other application vulnerabilities because device drivers are, in most cases, part of the kernel itself and subverting the critical software gives an attacker direct access to the kernel. Moreover, drivers that have direct memory access (DMA) - such as USB drivers, CardBus drivers, graphics drivers and sound drivers - could be used to overwrite system memory and exploit the system.
Some security experts argue that such issues are a well-known problem, and one with which device-driver programmers should have already dealt. The problem has been known for a decade or more, said Crispin Cowan, director of software engineering for Novell, which distributes the SuSE Linux distribution. He acknowledged, however, that not everyone may have made auditing driver code a priority.
"If you can crash your kernel with an application that is
From Microsoft.......
A detailed description of the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, and Windows Server 2003
Article ID: 875352
Last Review: May 10, 2005
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352
SUMMARY
Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a set of hardware and software technologies that perform additional checks on memory to help prevent malicious code from running on a system. In Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, DEP is enforced by hardware and by software.
The primary benefit of DEP is to help prevent code execution from data pages. Typically, code is not executed from the default heap and the stack. Hardware-enforced DEP detects code that is running from these locations and raises an exception when execution occurs. Software-enforced DEP can help prevent malicious code from taking advantage of exception-handling mechanisms in Windows.
from Microsoft.......p pro/maintain/sp2otech.mspx#EDAA
Controlling block storage devices on USB buses What does controlling block storage devices on USB buses do?
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winx
This feature provides the ability to set a registry key that will prevent write operations to USB block storage devices, such as memory sticks. When this registry key is enabled, the devices function only as read-only devices. You can implement this setting as part of a security strategy to prevent users from transporting data using these devices. Who does this feature apply to? Users who do not want data to be written from their computer to a USB storage device. IT professionals who want to implement organization controls over the use of USB block storage devices
What settings are added or changed in Windows XP Service Pack 2 Setting name Location Default value Possible values WriteProtect HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ CurrentControlSet\Control \StorageDevicePolicies DWORD=0 0 - Disabled 1 - Enabled
Sort of like escape artists who used to specialize is getting out of safes-- they were never meant to keep somthing inside from getting out, but from someone outside from getting in.
First and foremost, the guy says he has NOT notified Microsoft, but then goes on later to say:
"I was really looking to them to address this issue, but Microsoft feels that this is a hardware issue and doesn't see it as a problem," he said.
Which one is it, you told them or you didnt?
Then he goes really REALLY far out of his way not to mention which driver is supposedly exploitable... is it a driver HE wrote?!
I'm giving this 95% that its a driver HE wrote and installed to exploit ring 0 access, not an exploit in the existing usb stack components, which makes the whole article a self serving lie.
The joke is in the subject so I won't repeat.
While there is obviously an issue in that drivers, (particularly automatically loadeded ones such as Firewire and USB), have not undergone the security scrutiny that network software has, this is most certainly a PR article. There isn't a link to a technical description of the problem anyway, but the second half of the article is dedicated to vendor solutions. This article was instigated by a PR firm, not by normal media services. I wish I was going to blackhad though. After SANS I could only get work to pay for DEFCON. Especially since they know what CISSP training will cost.
I do security
A lot of people use encryption software. See TrueCrypt's forum. Or, for instance, this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keydrive, it's a story about USB disks, but there's a section that describes encryption software such as TrueCrypt or Private Disk.
:-)
IMHO this attracts plenty of attention, because everyone thinks wikipedia rocks. A couple of days ago my dad told me to "check this cool site out" (and gave me a link to wikipedia)
A couple of months ago I was working on a project, and a lot of reading material was needed... I searched thru Answers.com and Wikipedia, and then I've read my colleagues' projects -> they were all copy/pasted from either the first or the second site.
Wikipedia is a trend-setter, if encryption is mentioned there - then people will follow.
people do not like to haveto enter passphrases after they login to access their data.
Man, have you heard of 'multifactor authentication'? There are point-and-click tools that do that, so even grandmas can use them. Example
The saddest poem
This reminds me of when I bought a new MIDI controller with USB, and plugged it into my Windows 2000 machine and it just simply BSOD'd...
I couldn't believe it, just like that, BANG reset. Found it was a "known problem", so I followed the instructions on the M-Audio website, to the letter. Tried it again, still BSOD'd. To this day I can't use my USB MIDI controller in Windows 2000. Fortunately I use it mostly in Linux, where it works just fine.
(For the record, it does work under Windows XP)
Blaming USB for a privilege escalation is like blaming Ethernet for someone 0wning your box.
you had me at #!
This would be even more effective than the jpg exploit. And how many of those vulnerable web cams use USB? Talk about hacking the planet.
However, the flaw is with USB, not Windows, said David Dewey, a research engineer at SPI. any operating system that is USB-compliant is probably vulnerable
I can insert a floppy disk into the Windows machine, clear the Administrator password, and have full access to the computer in a matter of minutes.
...another press release masquerading as serious journalism from eweek, or another security researcher trying to make big news ahead of a conference?
1. I had to move my sound card to a different PCI slot because it was causing problems with sharing an IRQ with my video card. Because of different card sizes, I had to rearrange other cards, too.
a. New sound card found, do you have the drivers? Ah, yes, but... Great, give it the drivers again. Reboot.
b. New TV card (multimedia device found) do you have the drivers? Why, yes, but they were already instaLled. No matter... Reboot.
Two driver reinstallations and two Reboots.
2. Put my gamepad in a different USB port: Windows has found new hardware but you need to be an admin to install it. WHAT??? At least Windows didn't require me to reboot.
Linux. No driver reinstallations, no reboots, no need to be admin to use my fricking gamepad in a different port.
THIS IS RETARTED, BILLY BOY!!!! ze software is not so f888ing great!
A lot of you are missing the point. A "locked down" machine may not have physical access. There are circumstances where the machine itself IS locked down, by virtue of security cameras, monitoring equipment, or simply not having the physical box in the viscinity.
However, this USB exploit lets anybody defeat all that with just plugging in a USB device. This should be fixed. It is serious IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES.
Just stick your usb into my infected computer and get your key infected too. This worked fine in pre-internet days with diskettes, so we'll see some new worms with this capability -- quite dangerous, because there are many networks that cannot upgrade their windows for various reasons like running legacy software but firewalled or simply disconnected from the internet.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Given Microsoft's track record, they probably consider your office chair as part of Windows. But a driver problem is a driver problem, whether it's part of a monolithic kernel or loaded on demand from a separate medium. The OS problem would be the default inclusion of the buggy driver in a distro. Therefore, there are two problems to consider. Not that that would stop Microsoft from blaming the hardware...
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
therefore he IS not
But I decided to respond...
Use a very long passphrase and you got pretty good security, but with time it is crackable.
How many millions of years do you have?
Older Logitech mouse drivers could be forced to BSODs with perfectly legal HID function calls.
Now that Logitech drivers are widespread it allowed a denial of service attack on many computers.
I don't live in the U.S. and never have.
Go outside for once!
This is just a report about the general issue that all USB drivers have to be secure or a hardware device can be made to exploit the machine.
There's many specifications (IPV4 springs to mind) that weren't designed with security in mind. It's the responsibility of the OS writers to design their OS to handle such insecurities. There's nothing in the USB specs that say that the OS must run the USB driver at ring 0.
It is in no way about Windows, but actually about any operating system than implements USB.
The article gives two specific cases:
1. The ability to unlock locked systems (say, while the user is at lunch). This gives far more than just owning a system physically. You now have access to all of their network priviledges and everything else that relies on their single-sign on accounts. This is meaningless to Joe home user or most small businesses, but vastly significant to enterprise level situations. With physical access to my work Windows desktop, you could gain access to some e-mail and word processing. With access to my system logged in as me on the Active Directory, you would have access to my AD OU, networked drives, SSO enabled applications, etc. See the difference?
2. A USB drive that automagically copies the last used files onto a flash drive. The ability to subtly plug a drive in and retrieve it later opens all kinds of espionage capabilities.
it is not really worse than just inserting a boot CD that copies the relevant data to a secure server or so.
Beyond the statements I made above, rebooting a system in a secured environment can easily trigger monitoring systems' alerting capability.
It can also of course easily be fixed by disallowing loading of USB drivers without confirmation from the user.
For anyone interested, here's instuctions on how to (theoretically) disable USB entirely under Windows. Note that I've not tried the above process described, so it may or may not work. And another one discussing how to disable USB storage devices, although that may not be enough to prevent the exploit in question from working.
USB devices, bootable CD-ROMs, etc are all means to the same end. This is why physical security is so damned important!
Microsoft's 10 Immutable Law's of Security
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Everyone seems to be forgetting the real big security issue with this.
Accessing physical data on the system's hdd (whether encrypted or not) is not the major issue - accessing currently running programs is.
Example - John Q Sysadmin has a few open ssh sessions to some of his favourite boxes - locks his workstation so he can wander off somewhere. Anyone exploiting this to unlock his workstation now has access to his logged-in ssh terminals.
Yes, there are other ways to achieve this, including keyloggers, trojans, etc, but this makes it stupidly easy to walk past a random workstation, and potentially 10 seconds later have root access on any number of other boxes the user happened to be logged in as.
Remember guys - better be shutting down your ssh terms before you go to lunch!
Maybe a wireless KVM switch could be used with the computer locked in a safe somewhere. :-)
Wireless KVM
USB was created by the government to monitor data and to attempt to spy, control, and spy on peoples lives.
funny how its always companies with something to gain that point out the massively obvious.
It didnt take Caleb to find this, any 12 year old can and probably did.
World shocked USB has exploit that seemingly only world class co spy dynamics can find!
next thing you know, Symantec will report mutated lab viruses in the wild!.
To the people whining about how "this vulnerability exists in Linux, OSX"... etc... clearly. All the article claims is that some bad USB firmware writer makes his device pose as device(x), which on Windows has a known buggy driver. So what ? Windows is buggy. Move along citizen... nothing to see here.
Everytime I go into my university's engineering computer lab, half of the workstations are locked with nobody sitting at them. I've stayed for hours and nobody has come back to them. Some people are so inconsiderate. If I could plug a little device into the USB port and delete all of their files and send a few nasty emails from their account, maybe this problem would stop.
This is a perfect use for DEP, available on Celeron D (J models), P4 5xx (J models), P4 6xx, Pentium D, Athlon 64 and Sempron (Socket 754 models) CPUs. DEP blocks buffer overflow attacks.
Right and Given physical access, its possible to root most Linux boxes in 4 keystrokes.
Yes I know people will say, "my server/box is locked down". That's not the point, most, you can also lock down the USB exploit by disabling USB in the bios and using a bios password.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Just unplug the box and take it home.
Virtual memory.
It has a multitasking kernel. It borrows from other MS kernels. But it's not based upon a kernel used in any shipping MS PC product.
It depends on how hard you can throw a USB device agaist a window!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
This should be an update to the article.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Anyone recall the exploit where you pop in an autorun CD into Windows 9x to circumvent protected screensavers? Yep, it's back!
I saw a talk by a guy named David Maynor back in May. Here's the USB vulnerability presentation which includes the details of the vulnerability.
it's fairly similar to the firewire problem.
I'd be more concerned if there was an exploit to inject code into a PC with a wireless USB mouse.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?