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Word Vulnerability Compromised US State Dept.

Posted by samzenpus on from the you've-got-a-virus dept.

hf256 writes "Apparently hackers using an undisclosed (at the time) vulnerability compromised the State Departments network using a Word document sent as an email attachment. Investigators found multiple instances of infection, informed Microsoft, then had to sever internet connectivity to avoid leaking too much data!"

24 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Great news for open formats by Beuno · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well this should push everything towards open document formats a bit more, so it might just be a good thing...

    1. Re:Great news for open formats by Gerzel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think one problem is that we are making document formats that are far more than just what they are ostensibly used for. Word processing documents are generally meant to hold blocks of text, some pictures and charts, and some internal pointers. Does a word processing format really need java script, and support for every feature under the sun?

      However a new format for every feature doesn't work too well either. Perhaps an extendable document format that plainly details what features are used in the document, so you can tell if that Word doc in your email has more than just the text of that newly leaked Harry Potter novel.

    2. Re:Great news for open formats by berzerke · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How come you recommend StarOffice over OpenOffice.org?...

      Well, perhaps some policy forbids installing free (as in no invoice) software, or the policy requires a support contract.

    3. Re:Great news for open formats by Eggplant62 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Use the SOURCE, Luke.

      With open software, you can look at the source code and see exactly what it does and test it for all the vulnerabilities you want and get them removed, by yourself if you find yourself so talented. Only the monkeys in Redmond know what is really going on in Windows, and anyone using their products is dependent upon MS and MS only for a solution. That may come in days, weeks, but most likely months after a vulnerability is found. Meanwhile, someone ends up releasing details of the vulnerability, then codes up a nasty bug to take adavantage. The fact that MS software is so full of holes and has no real peer-review process among the general population of all possible coders interested in fixing bugs is its weakness in comparison.

    4. Re:Great news for open formats by boer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > With open software, you can look at the source code and see exactly what it does

      I though even the OS community had realised by now how ridiculous this argument is. World economy would in effect come to a halt if every company and public office started to scan source codes for potential vulnerabilities. This is hardly a selling argument and being a wise-ass about it has never helped the OS movement.

      Having a goal of zero vulnerabilities is such complex software as an office suite is strikes as feasible only to an ideologist nerd. In practise there will always be vulnerabilities as long as human beings will be responsible for the design and programming. And having gazillions of eyes searching through the source code presumably on the company dollar is not effective way to remove those faults.

      --
      (This sig intentionally left blank)
    5. Re:Great news for open formats by mattpalmer1086 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Parent is making a valid point, and is not a troll, whoever modded them that way. The 'more eyes' argument doesn't really work for me either. I use open source software all the time, and I rarely have a look at the source code, and even less frequently take the trouble to understand even a small part of it.

      What does work for me with open source is that the nature of open, distributed development tends to promote code modularity, which helps keep those defect counts down. And the fact that code is publicly available exerts an influence on developers to publish code they aren't be ashamed of (unlike what happens in proprietary software development with tight deadlines set by the sales team making unrealistic promises to clients - I have been there).

      However, there is a real distinction between defect-free software (probably does not exist) and software that intentionally includes back-doors. With open-source, you can have more confidence that there is no back door, spy-ware, or anything else that shouldn't be part of the application. But it certainly doesn't mean the software will be defect free.

    6. Re:Great news for open formats by zacronos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      a) Everyone CAN look at it [the source] (so no backdoors will be implemented)
      a) is correct, conclusion is not (see Ken Thompson's attack against a compiler)
      Actually, I would say a)'s conclusion was correct (and yes I'm familiar with the attack you mentioned). The poster did not say "no backdoors can exist in the software", but "no backdoors will be implemented". Assuming the poster meant "no backdoors will be implemented in the software being examined", I would say it is a correct statement -- there is a difference between a backdoor implemented in the source of software and a backdoor injected into the software by a compiler. Those are 2 different vectors that can both allow a backdoor in software (and both are possible regardless of whether it is closed or open source). Open source greatly reduces the likelihood of one of those vectors being attempted, and if attempted it probably reduces the expected length of time it will persist unnoticed.

      Saying open source software is no protection against backdoors because it is vulnerable to compiler-injected code is like saying that wearing a bullet-proof vest into a warzone is no protection because you're still just as vulnerable to stepping on a land mine.
    7. Re:Great news for open formats by LO0G · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, because those open document formats are 100% safe from coding bugs in the applications that parse them.

      And unquestionably OpenOffice is immune to parsing errors.

  2. Scary by nicolas.kassis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fact that a simple Word document can cause such a big problem is really sad. How can you tell a few thousand of people not to open word document attachment? I mean, where I work, users receive tons of documents (pdf, office, autocad) files by email from vendors and such, I guess the only defense is good email filtering but still a 0-day attack would make that useless.

    1. Re:Scary by mrbluze · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that a simple Word document can cause such a big problem is really sad. How can you tell a few thousand of people not to open word document attachment?

      Of course this is a popular article because it's more evidence of how Microsoft's 'professional' products are so amateurish, but you're right, you can't tell thousands of people not to open an attachment.

      The root of the problem doesn't lie in Word documents, or Word for Windows. The problem lies in Windows, period. The operating system is practically incapable of separating important and sensitive data from junk-mail and untrusted documents from the outside. In such a place as the State Department, it's scandalous.

      Whilst hypothetically, Linux is also vulnerable (eg: through some flaw in Open Office), a properly configured system could protect itself without needing to rely on the end user to manually screen every bit of junk they come across. Sure there would potentially have been some corruption of data, maybe some low level leakage, but really, this all points to a hopelessly overcomplicated and poorly designed OS. Naughty Bill!

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    2. Re:Scary by Sancho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Runing ./configure or make or make install could cause just as large a problem. Do you read through those scripts before running them?

      Furthermore, buffer overflows could exist in just about any program. There could be one in emacs right now, triggered by reading a file into the buffer. Then it would be "scary.. The fact that a simple text file can cause such a big problem is really sad."

      Unfortunately, they didn't disclose the nature of the vulnerability. "hidden software commands" in the mass media could be anything from shellcode to an executable embedded in the document, to a macro. Since Microsoft patched it, it was probably either something that autoran or an overflow.

    3. Re:Scary by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Insightful
      If our helpdesk can't solve the issue within 15 minutes the PC is re-imaged no questions asked no data saved.

      Christ on a stick! That's a bloody good reason to hide EVERY problem from the IT Nazis.

      Does anyone ever get any work done?

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    4. Re:Scary by jkrise · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Runing ./configure or make or make install could cause just as large a problem. Do you read through those scripts before running them?

      Furthermore, buffer overflows could exist in just about any program. There could be one in emacs right now, triggered by reading a file into the buffer. Then it would be "scary.. The fact that a simple text file can cause such a big problem is really sad."

      Nice attempt to evade the issue by raking up redundant matters. The crux of the problem here is that MS Word needs or provides Internet access for some of it's functions. Even if it had any buffer overflows, the problem would not be exploitable from remote systems.

      The fact that Word is designed to occasionally talk over the internet coupled with it's hooks into the OS via things like VBA etc. is the problem. In fact, the main problem here is not Word or Office, it is the Windows architecture that is vulnerable.

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    5. Re:Scary by wvmarle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Runing ./configure or make or make install could cause just as large a problem. Do you read through those scripts before running them?
      Of course I don't. Nobody does. But the difference is, I wouldn't run a script like that when receiving it via e-mail, unless specifically requested from the sender. Word documents are another matter. I regularly (few times a week) get them unexpected, from unknown origin, and do open them. That is because I am expecting new sales/purchase leads from new customers/suppliers - that's part of my business. And often they send their info as ms word attachment. That said, I use Linux/OOo so not much risk opening doc files.
      The scripts I run are downloaded from "trusted" sources - websites of known open-source software, collection sites like sourceforge, etc.

      Wouter.
    6. Re:Scary by jimicus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Christ on a stick! That's a bloody good reason to hide EVERY problem from the IT Nazis.

      Does anyone ever get any work done?

      Depending on your environment, that can actually be the quickest, easiest way to solve a problem.

      The GP didn't explain his environment, but in a lot of larger companies you'll find things are standardised as much as is humanly possible. In IT departments, "as much as is humanly possible" quite often isn't very much, so reimaging PCs there is a PITA for all concerned.

      But in a call centre, it's fine. In any office where all the people have clear, well-defined roles and you know in advance what software they need (let's say Office, one or two proprietary apps and that's about it), again, it's OK. Things only get complicated when the tools people need to fulfil their roles varies substantially from person to person and even from week to week.

    7. Re:Scary by John+Betonschaar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually its a very effective method for both the IT team and the people who desperately need the administrative access. IT aren't required to understand every little john doe program that these people can want to install so they don't have to support them (this is very clearly communicated to these users).

      [..]

      An example of a good operator: there's a bloke over in administration who I would swear used to work in IT. He's got Open Office installed when everyone else uses Microsoft Office, he uses firefox, thunderbird and trillian for his messenger. About 500 theme packs and a few other bits of software. According to our helpdesk logging system he has only ever called once, and this was when he patched himself for the new daylight savings time last year. Everyone else had the problem as well.

      I'd say that's a pretty stupid way to 'administer' your workstations... Why can these people even install all this shit themselves? How can some bloke in administration 'patch his machine' himself? And how does making them not call support because they know they won't fix your problem help with the maintenance of your network. The only thing I can see something like that heading to is an IT support department that only answers the utterly stupid requests and hardware failures. Employees just don't bother to call them because they don't want there machine re-imaged, so they just start fooling around themselves, or ask some guy like the 'bloke from administration' to 'fix' their system. Eventually that can only and in a maintenance and security nightmare.

  3. It proves a set of closed vs open source arguments by postbigbang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) the attack, once found, would have a bevy of coders working on it (we hope, of course)

    2) the testing and regression doesn't have the dependency matrix that Word does, and it's likely that if there was a link, it could be both understood and remedied quickly thru an open code supply chain

    3) multiple hackers (oops, I mean coders) would likely offer variances of a patch, of which perhaps several would/could be part of the subsequent 'patched' tree

    4) eight weeks is a travesty, and that the State Department of the United States of America didn't have an IDF that could detect the abberant traffic is just plain malfeasant. Heads should roll.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  4. Only fooling themselves by drago177 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At first, the hackers did not immediately appear to try stealing any U.S. government data. Authorities quietly monitored the hackers' activity, then tripwires severed Internet connections

    If you find evidence of a break-in, its possible the attackers are also connecting in a way you haven't yet detected. Hope they know what they're doing. Given their reputation, I doubt it.

  5. Re:Quick by Sancho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What magical office software do you use that is apparently 100% bug free?

  6. OS and Apps must be seperate! by jhfry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anytime that applications are allowed to access files or capabilities beyond what is absolutely necessary to perform their function, there is a risk.

    Microsoft has created some of the most powerful office tools by leveraging tons of existing code that wasn't exactly designed for the intended purpose.

    For example, I love VBA (visual basic for applications)... it can make it very easy to turn a basic spreadsheet into a pseudo application. The problem is, VBA has too many ties to the OS.

    That's where "sane" operating systems differ. User space and the OS are heavily separated, in fact, user space for each user is separated from other users, and almost all services run as a unique user. This intentional separation provides very robust security, and is absolutely necessary to creating a secure system.

    I cannot blame anyone but MS for this... and not the MS Word or Office team. If the OS were properly designed so that user space applications were properly separated, issues such as this would not exist.

    The best part is how long in coming the patch for this is... if these systems were running anything open source, a preliminary patch would be made in a matter of hours (assuming that it was posted immediately to an appropriate mailing list or IRC channel).

    I can't wait until the saying is changed to "Everybody is getting fired for buying Microsoft"... because, IMO, any IT manager who gives a shit about the "INFORMATION" portion of their title should be fired for trusting it to MS's proprietary bullshit!

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    1. Re:OS and Apps must be seperate! by goofballs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's where "sane" operating systems differ. User space and the OS are heavily separated, in fact, user space for each user is separated from other users, and almost all services run as a unique user. This intentional separation provides very robust security, and is absolutely necessary to creating a secure system. I cannot blame anyone but MS for this... and not the MS Word or Office team. If the OS were properly designed so that user space applications were properly separated, issues such as this would not exist. this has nothing to do with separation of the user space- the app is run as a unique user, and the information stolen is that available to that user. there is no suggestion that privilege escalation occured in this attack.
  7. open formats alone won't save you by secPM_MS · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It is easy to condemn Microsoft for the vulnerabilities in Office, but the root issue here is the rich functionality in modern office suites. Office came to dominate the market by its rich functionality, tight integration, and ease of use. The addition of sophisticated scripting functionality allowed organizations or integrators to add yet more value. It also created a fertile environment for malicious attackers. As long as the Windows operating system was easily broken, nobody bothered much with attacking the application stack. As Microsoft has raised the bar in the attack resistance of the operating system, attacks have moved up the stack. I was not at MS at the time, but I do not believe that security has at the top of the stack for Office 11 and earlier. I do know that substantial hardening was performed on Office 12, which I believe is now marketed as Office 2007. From my point of view, Office 12 should be viewed as a very important security update to Office 11. I know, they changed the UI. I wish they had left a "classic" option. They didn't. But Office 12 is far less vulnerable than Office 11.

    In their determination to sucessfully match Office's rich features, Open Office has acquired similar vulnerabilities. One evaluation I saw some time ago concluded that Open Office was likely to be more vulnerable than Office.

    If you want to be secure, run software that does what you need, and NO MORE! Rich functionality and extensibility are the attack points. Not many people want to restrict themelves to txt files or filtered html, let alone edit any longer with editors such as vi or microemacs. Due to their extensibility, pdf and postscript are suspect in the eyes of the truly paranoid, let alone the complex modern formats.

  8. Well in my office by th3rmite · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most people who are not familiar with IT in the US Government have NO IDEA how dependent even the military is on MS products. Think MS based virii, worms and exploits aren't on classified networks? Networks that don't even share a common hardware link to the internet...

  9. hacker != criminal by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    -1 for subby for using the word "hacker" to describe the criminal(s) responsible. You'd think the /. crowd would know better.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.