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Microsoft's "Dead Cow" Patch Was 7 Years In the Making
narramissic writes "Back in March 2001, a hacker named Josh Buchbinder (a.k.a Sir Dystic) published code showing how an attack on a flaw in Microsoft's SMB (Server Message Block) service worked. Or maybe the flaw was first disclosed at Defcon 2000, by Veracode Chief Scientist Christien Rioux (a.k.a. Dildog). It was so long ago, memory is dim. Either way, it has taken Microsoft an unusually long time to fix. Now, a mere seven and a half years later, Microsoft has released a patch. 'I've been holding my breath since 2001 for this patch,' said Shavlik Technologies CTO Eric Schultze, in an e-mailed statement. Buchbinder's attack, called a SMB relay attack, 'showed how easy it was to take control of a remote machine without knowing the password,' he said."
Back in March 2001
Back then I was still in high school [now I'm a Ph.D. student]. The twin towers still stood. The Bush administration hasn't shown its true colors yet. The Fellowship of the Ring was all the buzz, as was the first Harry Potter film. I had just dipped my feet into "this Linux thing", with Red Hat 6.2. Back then, fips [First Indestructive Partitioning System or something] didn't exactly live up to its name. Good thing I never keep backups :(
Think back seven years. Where were you? How many times have you changed occupation, had kids, changed partner, moved to a new city, changed your lifestyle habits, reconsidered your core values and beliefs, or made some other big change in your life?
Hidden cows is a pinball egg