Slashdot Mirror
Vista Exploit Surfaces on Russian Hacker Site
Datamation writes "Exploit code for Windows Vista (though at this point only proof-of-concept code) has been published to a Russian hacker site, Eweek reports. Certain strings sent through the 'MessageBox' API apparently cause memory corruption. Though this is obviously cause for concern, at the moment it would seem access to the system would already be required to make use of the exploit. Determina has an analysis of the bug. Just last week, Trend Micro reported that Vista zero-days are being sold at underground hacker sites for $50,000."
Geez, they don't even need to publish exploit details. I can figure it out from the technical details. Yet again, the need for the CLR to support this moronic language creates a very obvious security flaw. Once again, data being marshalled across process boundaries assumes the VB programmer knows what he's talking about, and doesn't safely pass the message string, instead allowing the marshaller to interpret it as code. Great. I'm sure we'll see a whole bunch of related exploits that target the .NETCOM marshaller.
Doesn't anybody know that the first rule of system programming is "Never trust your input"? Why on earth is something running with SYSTEM privileges not validating input it could have received from a Visual Basic programmer?
mandelbr0t
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
In Soviet Russia... Vista exploit you! ...
Oh wait! That's how it works everywhere else too!
If con is the opposite of pro. Then isn't congress the opposite of progress?
Selling them to Microsoft means, hopefully, the end of the exploit and no more sales.
In an ideal world, with a software maker worth the name, yes. But with Microsoft, it seems there's never an end to bugfixing. Look at XP: it was touted as the most secure Windows ever (which isn't saying much really) when it was released, and yet look, in 2007, there are still exploits cropping up almost every day even with all the patches.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Of course, this doesn't don't count, as has been evidenced by the outcry against similar proof-of-concept security holes in OS X.
I'm pretty sure the Slashdot community wouldn't be so two-faced as to claim something is an exploit on Vista which isn't 'counted' as an exploit on OS X, right?
Right?
I fail to follow your logic. How does some imaginary Slashdot posters opinion on an OS X exploit have any baring on the contents of the article. We have yet to see a large scale virus or phishing exploit on the Mac. Re:Doesn't count!
davecb5620@gmail.com