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Image Handling Flaw Puts Windows At Risk
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has released word that several image handling flaws may open Windows PCs to Spyware or viruses. From the article: 'We will continue to see this type of vulnerabilities in every major application for the foreseeable future ... It is not just images, but any type of complex file format. This is something that security researchers and hackers have realized to be a weak point in many applications.'"
Windows wasn't open to spyware and viruses before?
Okay, so it is critical. The advisory contains the patch to correct the problem. This only becomes an issue if Windows users don't patch their machines.
What is the likelihood that users won't patch their machines? (cough!)
From TFA:
Mehta doesn't expect the latest Windows flaws to be exploited in a widespread attack. "We're not bracing for any major worm or malware outbreak, but we do expect them to be used in targeted attacks," Mehta said. "There is user interaction required, there has to be someone sitting at the other end in order to be compromised."
Yeah, like viewing an image from usenet. No one ever does that.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Or your computer could get an STD (Screenally Transmitted Disease) from viewing pornographic images.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So now not only will looking at the goatse picture make you vommit, it will take over your Windoze PC!
Will the horrors ever stop?!!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Both jpg and png was flawed in Windows, MSN Messenger, and even other image apps by a buffer overflow exploit where a specially crafted jpeg file with a virus "attachment" would crash the program and execute virus code. I have to agree that if they are still finding flaws, we'll be stuck with them for a while. Just imagine, every Windows 98 computer out there probably has this problem too, and there's no way it's going to be really fixed. It will never be safe to run even "safe" things like jpg and mp3 on old computers now. It's very, very disapointing news.
In a Messenger program that is always accepting new input in the form of pictures and messages, it's especially dangerous because anyone who's online will instantly become a zombie spewing out infection to their friends on their contact list. You really will get viruses through your personal contacts more than spamming-strangers in the future.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
When writing a parser (for a graphical or non-graphical data file) it is advisable to sanity check the input data at every step.
Consider ASN.1 data (used, for instance, for digital certificates, certificate revocation lists, certificate requests and so on).
Each and every ASN.1 data element and each and every sub-element contains a length field. The ASN.1 parser should check whether the length field of a sub-element goes beyond the length of the enclosing data element, and so on ad infinitum.
If the parser detects a violation, parsing stops.
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Microsoft's .NET platform, which is supposed to be managed code, has built-in support for rendering WMF and EMF images (the image formats that are affected by this security vulnerability). So are applications written in .NET still vulnerable to the buffer overflow exploit, or was the underlying rendering code rewritten for the managed environment?
Writing managed applications won't protect you (completely) if the underlying framework isn't also managed.
You're confusing exploits with vulnerabilities. There have been plenty of vulnerabilities or haven't you been following all the security updates?
List of security updates for Mac OS X
Take for example Security Update 2005-008
This update includes the following components:
ImageIO
LibSystem
Mail
QuickDraw
Ruby
SecurityAgent
securityd
Hmm. A security update that touches the ImageIO library?
p.s. before you flame/mod me into oblivion, I'm a happy Mac OS X user. Yes, Windows has way more bugs and a much worse security record. Is OS X invulnerable? No.