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Korean Mozilla Binaries Infected
Magnus writes "Korean distributions of Mozilla and Thunderbird for Linux were infected with Virus.Linux.RST.b. This virus searches for executable ELF files in the current and /bin directories and infects them. It also contains a backdoor, which downloads scripts from another site, and executes them, using a standard shell."
...expect to see more of this as the popularity of OSS continues. Of course, unlike Windows it won't get far since MOST users are smart enough to not be running as root.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I can hear it now; "See, FF isn't as secure as its supporters claim it is."
Whatever.
Considering this only affects one operating system (Linux) and occured in only one area of the world (Korea), despite this flaw it's still a whole bunch better than getting an update for IE our Outlook and having everyone who uses Windows, regardless of where they are in the world, being infected.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
And that applies to Linux as well. Yet another example of why you should have an up to date antivirus solution, and scan EVERYTHING you download, without exception. This is what we ought to teach end users to practice and also system Admins need to follow advice on this. Understand SELinux, Firewalling and virus detection is crucial.
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Exactly. If you run as root, you're a moron. If you run as a regular user, then the only thing you might hose is your own /home dir. If you're a smart user, you've been backup up your /home dir to a location that only root can access... That way recovery is painless. Very different from Windows where you have to reinstall the OS to be sure you're clean. (BTW, we're talking home users, not corporate users)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
The more common users that are starting to embrace what are thought of as secure products... the more people will start to exploit.
That's odd... I learned here that Mozilla is clearly more responsive to security bugs than Microsoft. What gives?
You mean besides the fact that the binaries were removed as soon as they found out?
Well, the symantec description wasn't very useful to me. But if I read it right, the virus tries to infect /bin. But iirc it will have to be run with root privileges in order to be able to infect /bin. Dunno about you guys, but I never ever unpacked firefox builds into my home directory when running as root. Basic security. So, if I understand this correctly, it only infects /bin when you've been sloppy. Not much of a threat, is it?
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
I'm assuming this can only occur if you installed the virus infected material as root?
Nothing new here....if you install software as root from a compromised source and don't check the md5sums along with other precautions you put yourself at risk
It is. The fact that the only way for it to be effective is to pre-infect the original distribution. Which means someone miscopulated the canine. Still cant get around human fallibility in that regard.
Linux is still much more secure in its raw state than almost any closed-source product even after post-install configuration. Anyone with a modicum of experience with a fresh *nix installation will likely spot this before it does any real damage.
Suppose it was only a matter of time before someone figured this out though. Goes to show you, it is not a good idea to hook any system up to a network or the web before you finish the basic post-install configurations.
Stupid Humans.....
Where does it says it spread?
It is a 3 years old thing and it never spread, why should it now?
It has been found somewhere on some server in some package.
OK, then?
Distros build their version of softwares from source, they check the sources, their users get their software from their distro.
End of the story.
Moral of the story:
-don't download binaries from other sources than your distro.
-don't install binaries from other sources than your distro as root.
They do own and control the international trademark used by that domain name (I hope). Maybe they should be more careful who they loan it to.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Even so, as long as the user you run doesn't have write acccess to any executables (tis a good idea), you're fine.
Uh, but don't you need write access to be able to install the infected mozilla executables? Even if it can't infect executables, having your web browser infected is more than bad enough since you typically enter all sorts of "interesting" information in your browser. How is this "fine"?
Who is that guy who don't feel necessary to precise that "/bin directories" can't be written by non-root users... Jeez, "all about internet security", really ? Make your facts accurate !
I believe the point is if MS did this, it wouldn't matter how fast they removed the infected binaries, there would be a string of posts pontificating on how this clearly demonstrates linux/firefox as superior. And they'd all be modded +5.
Of course saying the reverse here will quickly get you troll/flamebait/overated down to -1.
East Coast Brewers
OK, really paranoid, conspiracy-theory thought here... Yesterday, Symantec, a vendor with an AV product, releases a report claiming that Mozilla is not as secure as IE. Today, a news story comes out that a download of Mozilla from some website in Korea has been trojaned. Anyone else wondering if Symantec placed the infected files in Korea to boost sales of either their Linux AV product (haven't checked to see if there is one yet) or their security consluting services?
My late-night googling skills are failing to find a reference, but I remember some stories from a couple years back about AV companies writing and releasing new viruses to pad their list of known viruses. If that was true, then I wouldn't put a stunt like this past them.
When are people going to lean that the only truly secure computer is the one that's free of any connection to anything, wired or otherwise, powered off, encased in concrete, and then shot into the sun? Anything that people build will have some kind of vulnerability. The trick is mitigating them so that damamge is minimal.
Come on...this isn't rocket surgery. Use some common sense.
This is not a sig. this is a duck. quack.
If you've read TFA, you'd know that this has virtually nothing to do with mozilla or OSS.
A third party, a mozilla fan site in korea, distributed infected binaries.
If you find an infected version of Winzip on an internet site, would you blame Winzip.com ?
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
While you're right normally one installing software as root, installing software from a FTP site without checking at least the md5sum from a trusted origin is dumb.
Unfortunately this part can't be fully automatised, because you would rely on the untrusted package to find the originator sources which can be facked, obviously..
If the installation on Linux was standardised maybe just asking the user where is the originator website of the software.
But Linux's distribution can't even standardised on a common packaging format, so standardising on a common installation tool is a pipe dream..
I use a lot of OS software (e.g. Firefox, NeoOffice/J, LyX, R), but the standard installation process on my platform (OS X) does not allow checking for an authentic signature. Why is this not built in? It doesn't have to be this way: for instance, Red Hat signs its own RPMs (though Debian's APT didn't support this last time I looked).
We already have to trust the developers. We shouldn't have to trust every FTP server too.
Provided your Windows install is not on a FAT partition. In which case, security what's that?
One of the reasons that people supported Linus trademarking Linux was to prevent other people from releasing buggy code.
How is this different?
This is not about Mozilla distributing infected binaries. Mozilla did not. If they had, your analogy would be correct.
This is about a 3rd party site distributing binaries of compiled Mozilla code that were infected.
The only Microsoft comparision that can be made would be if HP (or some OEM) shipped WinXP computers with a virus.
The real question is how did that virus get there in the first place. It's been around for a while but it doesn't spread.
When Security companies and security experts write or say anything derogatory about Linux/OSS security everyone jumps on them. When corroborating news comes out OSS people deny or try to explain it away as an aberration and not the norm.
And I thought part of the OSS religion was diligence and persistence in security. M$ are the ones that deny the problem exists and do nothing about it right? Well, RIGHT?
The emperor has no clothes!
--russ
Yes, you'll download it from microsoft.com, not from microsoft.kr. Hmm, why not take the same care when downloading Mozilla?
Just because those responses are predictable doesn't mean that some of them aren't also true.
Besides, Microsoft is constantly broadcasting the message that Linux sucks, and they are paying billions a year to have that message repeated wherever they can. Do you expect Linux supporters to just respond once and then shut up?
Microsoft has bought the airwaves, print publications, billboards, and face time to get their message across. Leave the rest of us a little space on discussion groups for expressing our views.
Writing a virus for Linux is easy.
Getting that virus onto someone else's box is very difficult.
Getting that virus to spread from that box is even more difficult.
Linux viruses have an infection rate that is lower than their removal rate so they die in the wild.
The real question is how did that virus get into that code? Linux viruses tend to have total infection numbers of less than 100 machines.
Let's compare apples to apples here. If MS was offering infected binaries form one of THEIR sites, yes, we'd be jumping down their throat. On the other hand, if MS decided to let Download.com distribute versions of a "freeware" application (like Messenger), and the binaries on Download.com were infected, most of us would just be avoiding Download.com like the plague. Sure, some people would still blame Microsoft, just as some people are going to blame Mozilla here.
Now, having said all of that, I'll bring up the question of accountability. Since Mozilla is being distributed by public mirrors, it's probably a REALLY good idea to have some sort of guidelines that need to be met by the administrators to make sure this doesn't happen on a "Mozilla-certified" mirror. Maybe this is already in place.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
That's a falacy. Linux is just as vunerable to trojaned installers as any other OS. You install mozilla as root, right? Debian apt runs as root, so you'd better be trusting those apt repositories, and all of the contributers.
OS security does help against worms and other methods of infection, but dealling with trojans is a 90% user function. This improved security, along with market share (as you point out) is what makes Linux "safer". To get a virus on Linux, you essentially have to do something wrong yourself. Which is no consolation to the gran and grandpa users, "Download Weather Bar (linux version) popups" are only a few years away...
ActiveX is a stupid security model. That is why so many exploits for it exist and why you have to keep your anti-virus signatures updated every day.
There is no equivalent in FireFox.
Anyone, anywhere can put up infected FireFox binaries. Whether anyone will ever download and install them is another matter.
But Mozilla as a whole (the organisation and the products) are already getting bad press for this.
People have complained in the past about the Mozilla organisation being heavy handed about trademarks, and trademarks (eg the Linux one) have been getting a bad rap in general. But here's the other side of the coin - the actions of an organisation that identify themselves as "Mozilla", even though they're _not_ the Mozilla foundation, are tarnishing the reputation of the genuine article.
rm -rf ~/*
.. :)
Severe enough
How is it a black day? According to the exploit you posted it was fixed the day it was reported.
And sadly, Linux administrators have been unable to suitably protect their systems in all this time, so it continues to be a pain in the ass, never really going away. I work for a hosting company, and I've dug Linux.RST.b out of too many servers.
/bin like "grep" start crashing. Tends to make boot up and shutdown clumsily fail.
I think too many Linux admins don't believe there's such a thing as a Linux virus. Usually the easiest way to recognize the infection is if a large number of common programs in
I don't care, but don't let that stop you from trying to tell me anyway.
To get infected on Windows you... have to turn the system on. As far as I can tell.
Sure a lot of Windows infections are because the user downloaded and installed binaries from untrusted third parties, but equally as many just turned their computers on.
If you ran untrusted binaries on your Apple you'd be exposing yourself to similar risk. Hell, we used to have the same problem on IBM mainframes back in the '80's -- every year around chistmas time all the freshmen would run those greeting card programs in their in-boxes and bring the network down as the trojan spread itself to everyone in their address book. Windows just eliminates a lot of the work for you.
As the Linux userbase expands into increasingly less clueful segments of the population compromised systems are going to be more of a problem, but I predict that even if the installed Linux base ever grows to the size that Windowss is, the problem won't be as severe as it is on Windows. Unless everyone's running Lindows...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The distribution system is how people get the code.If the md5sums from the main site would be valid, then why not download from the main site?
Once you start installing apps from random sites you open yourself up for all kinds of problems.Yeah. Keep believing that. Maybe you've heard of this stuff called "spyware" that infects machines via IE's ActiveX implementation.
Or maybe you haven't heard that a restricted user cannot use IE because the permissions aren't correct.
So, on Windows, you must have elevated permissions just to use the various apps and THAT is what results in so many infections.
If you run mozilla as a normal user
But you'll have installed it as root, and the installer was infected, and you're still screwed.
It's official. Most of you are morons.