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First OpenOffice Virus, Not In the Wild
NZheretic writes "According to APCmag, the first cross-platform OpenOffice.org virus — 'SB/Badbunny-A' — was emailed directly to Sophos from the virus developers. The proof-of-concept virus affects Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems and uses different methods on each. It has not yet been seen in the wild. Despite Sun's OpenOffice.org developer Malte Timmermann's claims to the contrary, this kind of embedded scripting attack represents a real threat to OpenOffice.org users. Back in June 2000 when Sun first announced the open sourcing of OpenOffice.org, the twelfth email to the open discussion list put forward a two-part solution for providing OpenOffice users with Safe(r) Scripting using restricted-mode execution by default and access by signed digital certificates. In October 2000 the issue of treating security as an 'add-on' feature rather than as a 'system property' was again raised. Is it time to now introduce such measures to the OpenOffice.org Core to greatly reduce any future risk from scripted infections?"
Is to stop enabling scripting by default in software that has no real need of scripting. Hasn't even Microsoft learnt this by now?
Documents shouldn't run scripts unless explicitly authorized to do so. That goes for word processors, spreadsheets, PDF readers, email clients and web browsers. The problem is that the world is full of dickheads who needlessly distribute documents that require executing script, so users end up clicking yes every time.
Imagine how few viruses and trojans there would be if requiring script was the exception rather than an unfortunate rule.
Oh well, we can all dream.
Copy even Microsoft's mistakes?
I mean, really. We've known about macro viruses for 20 years, and the danger of putting executable code in documents for about the same, and yet, in 2007, an open-source application, backed by a major UNIX vendor is released with this vulnerability?
Apparently many eyes do not make bugs shallow. I guess the community was asleep at the switch. Or maybe, something in the process is broken. Or maybe Sun just doesn't care.
Now, lest you think this a troll, consider: Security and virus immunity have been a big selling point for open source systems. Until now. Sun is a large player in the open source arena, and this makes everyone else - secure or not - look bad. Security was the major selling point for OO, and now that it's questionable, I'm not sure where Sun is going to go with this: they can't compete with Microsoft on features, OO is far from a universal standard (which means you're going to be plagued with interoperability issues), and OO's last major selling point is that it is free as in beer.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I don't know of any wide distro that doesn't have Perl or xchat.
Getting write and execute permissions is a concern. Because they wider the Linux audience, the more people will want to double click on an attachment to see the 'dancing ponies' or whatever.
Sad, but true.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Those that do can enable scripting. There's no reason to expose the vast majority who will never, ever, use that functionality to the risk. Which is why I said "disable by default" and not "rip it out and burn it".
You are correct that vulnerable functionality should be in a protected wrapper. However, this will simply reduce, not eliminate shenanigans. Clever monkeys will still find a way.
Thank god /usr/bin is read-only! Its sentimental value is irreplaceable. Grandma can, of course, get /home back off the install disks.
Hey, wait.
whereis insert_mailapp_here?
because we all uninstall everything we don't use right? you fail to see that they can be written to use other apps, this just happens to use mirc or xchat.
never underestimate a determined thief.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
was emailed directly to Sophos from the virus developers ... who dutyfully included it in their signature database, so it will be looked for in millions of computers even though it is not in the wild.
.scr file of 16kb before deciding that it is safe (because it not yet had the signature).
meanwhile, our computers get slower and slower. virusscanners eat up lots of resources and become ever slower. I recently noticed clamav takes 13 seconds to scan an infected
wouldn't it be time that antivirus companies slim down the signature lists a bit. of course it is cute to boast a "number of signatures" above 100.000, but who is really getting benefit from the scanning of all those hypothetical viruses?
In any company, there's a whole bunch of departments other than IT.
Those departments don't always fancy calling the IT department when they have an IT requirement - particularly if it doesn't seem that complicated. There is always someone in the department who knows their way around Excel (and possibly Access) better than any of their colleagues. So they cobble something together in some 'orrible mess of VB macros linking who knows what files, referential integrity or scalable design be damned.
Were you to audit any sizeable business for spreadsheets made somehow interactive with scripts and badly designed databases thrown together in Access, I guarantee you'd be amazed and disturbed in equal measure. And you really don't want to start trying to figure out which ones have somehow become critical to the business.
This has been going on for years. Try taking that functionality away today, you might as well suggest replacing their computers with slide rules.