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Oops! Missed One Fix — Windows Attacks Under Way
CWmike writes "Microsoft says attackers are now exploiting a critical Windows bug that it didn't get around to fixing in its biggest batch of security patches in more than five years, issued yesterday. Microsoft said that 'limited and targeted' attacks are in progress by hackers exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in the WordPad Text Converter, a tool included with all versions of Windows. If Microsoft patches the WordPad problem on its monthly schedule, the first opportunity for fixing the flaw would be Jan. 9, 2009." Update: 12/10 22:28 GMT by T : OK, there might have been more than one: reader Simon (S2) writes "There is an even more serious flaw ... From SANS: 'There is a 0-day exploit for Internet Explorer circulating in the wild. At this point in time it does not appear to be wildly used, but as the code is publicly available we can expect that this will happen very soon. This is a brand new exploit that is *not* patched with MS08-073 that was released yesterday. I can confirm that the exploit works in a fully patched Windows XP machine. The exploit is a typical heap overflow that appears to be exploiting something in the XML parser.'"
From the article (i know I know, slashdot...), Windows XP SP3, Vista, and Windows Server 2008 aren't vulnerable. I didn't read how the exploit actually works to see if it can realistically be used to attack Windows Server 2003 (which is quite popular), but for people at home, if your machine is up to date, you're fine.
So seriously, whats the big deal?
How can code in the wordpad text editor leave a machine vulnerable?
It can be used to execute a malicious program that makes the system vulnerable. Wordpad just works as a launcher for the malicious program.
Here be signatures
Its not remotely exploitable. From the article, a user has to open a maliciously crafted file. So its just the fairly typical exploit where a document viewer poorly handles documents it can open.
It needs user interaction to work, someone has to open a file that they don't trust (I guess it MAY be possible to trick a user into opening the file from the web, since there is a Word viewer that potentially use the same file converter that is responsible for the exploit).
Also, XP SP3, Vista and WinServer 2008 aren't vulnerable at all.
It has to trick the user into opening a Word 97 file with Wordpad, which can be done by changing the extension of the file to .wri. So as long as you don't open any attachments to bogus email, you'll be OK. This information is in the article, BTW.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
The attacker sends you a .wri file in an email. By default this will be opened using WordPad. WordPad will attempt to decode the Word97 content of the .wri file and in doing so will trigger some sort of attack code (the article and security advisory are vague about this part).
Basically, don't open weird files that you find on the internet.
Word files are not binary executables. They are (pre OOXML) binary file formats. I don't know what the exact exploit is (probably some sort of buffer overflow) but the idea is to craft a Word document such that it contains executable code and exploits the flaw in wordpad that causes the executable code to execute.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
It's easier to get someone to open a .wri or .doc file than a .exe file.
Wordpad does not have the capability to execute those macros, because it does not have an embedded VBA interpreter. The macros are binary gibberish without the VBA runtime, much like a Perl file is just text without the Perl interpreter.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
They've been doing this for over a year now at least. It's the greatest weakness in patch tuesday and shows how monopolies are often caught between a rock and a hard place. Corporations demand a set cycle for patches, but if you do that then the attackers can optimize their attacks so that they arrive one month from when the next patches come out. It's a lose-lose situation for them.
If you have an MSDN Subscription and are a developer, thats actually your best bet (well, now its Windows Server 2008, which is superior in every way, but...)
Windows Server editions have been better desktops than their actual "home" or "professional" editions for a while. The only drawback is they are harder to setup initially (2003 and 2008 are fairly locked down by default), and that they have higher hardware requirements (but use the hardware better). Oh, and the price, of course (but if you use it for development purpose, you can use the MSDN version. Even without that, its expensive, but its not 10 grands either)
Add that some stuff only works on Windows Server (let say, Sharepoint), and unless you feel like running Windows XP or Vista, only to spend 99% of your time in a VM, Windows Server is a vastly superior option.