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US-CERT Says Microsoft's Advice On Downadup Worm Bogus
CWmike writes "Microsoft's advice on disabling Windows' 'Autorun' feature is flawed, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) said today, and it leaves users who rely on its guidelines to protect their PCs against the fast-spreading Downadup worm open to attack. US-CERT said in an alert that Microsoft's instructions on turning off Autorun are 'not fully effective' and 'could be considered a vulnerability.' The flaw in Microsoft's guidelines are important at the moment, because the 'Downadup' worm, which has compromised more computers than any other attack in years, can spread through USB devices, such as flash drives and cameras, by taking advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features."
Except that this worm spreads through usb devices and is inherently not-Internet oriented. The only really safe way to use Windows is to constantly reimage your computer or to run in a virtual machine that can be reimaged every time it runs. Within 2 years, it will be feasible to run games in a VM on typical desktop hardware (once IOMMUs are common).
Palm trees and 8
Is it really true that you have to edit the registry to turn off autorun? There isn't any clicky? Amazing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Would like to see a worm disable some of Microsoft's DRM and see how fast they come out with a working patch.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
It makes me feel a bit dizzy every time I think that this "feature" is enabled by default. It's a feature in the same way that an online banking system might feature login without a password, "just type your name to instantly access your account!" It saves the user a tiny hassle against an opportunity for absolute catastrophe.
Autorun is high on my list of stuff to disable very shortly after installing a fresh copy of Windows.
And it's not like it's a secret that this is a vulnerability. There's a reason Apple abandoned this capability when it moved from OS 9 to OS X.
Microsoft deserves derision for continuing to offer and promote this feature.
If Microsoft can't be bothered by it, nor convinced it's a very, very, bad idea, then autorun should at be limited exclusively to CDs and DVDs. That would merely be a terrible idea, as opposed to a downright catastrophic one.
Does Windows Vista or Window 7 handle this differently than XP??
Vista is the most secure windows OS, probably. "most secure" != "secure".
This worm is evidence that they still have a long way to go.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
"by taking advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features"
well no, not really.
Granted, they take advantage of the fact that...
1. there is an autorun feature. Is that so horrible? Probably not.
2. that the autorun feature pops up a display letting the user choose what to do (i.e. run the program, browse the drive, view pictures if it finds them, etc.). Again, not so bad.
3. that the autorun feature lets you customize the icon. Okay, things get a little hairy here - it's nice when the icon fits the program, but this malware uses the icon of... a folder. Just like the 'browse the disc/device' icon.
4. that the autorun feature does not have a -clear- distinction between what are autorun directives (run the program), and what are windows' built-in features (browse the drive).
The fourth is nearly inexcusable and if handled well, it would alleviate the third as well - just put a big red border around the darn thing (is one option, anyway).
In the end, though, it doesn't exploit 'autorun' directly - it exploits the fact that many users will think that the option with the folder icon with (misleading) description is the regular 'browse drive' option and click it carelessly.
Although Microsoft has not formally recommended that users disable Autorun as an anti-Downadup measure, most security companies and researchers have in light of the autorun.inf infection vector.
The "recommendation" referred to is almost two years old and has nothing to do with the worm. Article is a troll pretty much. One support article is for disabling Autorun on CD-ROMs, while the other is for Autoplay. Neither was created specifically to support Downadup as far as I can tell.
So no, not really suspicious at all. Bad on the "researchers" who have pointed to those articles for protection.
Or you could, oh I don't know, not let morons near your computer? I'm typing this on a Win2K pro machine that has been hooked to the net and running non stop for almost 9 years. In that time I have gotten zero, zip, nada, squat on the virus front. Why? Because I don't let morons on this machine, that's why.
As a PC repairman I have noticed the PEBKAC problems with Windows can nearly always be traced to one of three types. One, the "anything my friend (insert name of girlfriend) sends me has to be okay." Those can usually be dealt with by installing a decent AV and having them use webmail instead of OE. Two, the "I will click on anything that'll get me teh hot lesbos!" guy. You can usually cut down on his rate of pwnage by giving a copy of Firefox loaded with bookmarks for places like Youporn and Redtube. And three, the "I click on everything I loads off the Kazaa!" types. These are usually dumbass teenagers looking for the latest horrible pop drivel and instead clicking on "lousy_tune.mp3.exe" thinking it is their pop drivel. Putting them in a limited user account and putting a good AV to scan whatever folder they are downloading crap to usually does the trick.
The point is blaming Windows for morons is like blaming the SUV manufacturers when some woman plows through a family of five because she ran a redlight while playing with her cell phone. Stupid people will find a way to break stuff, hence why we call them stupid. If you put these types on OSX or Linux they would break just as much as they do on Windows. They would just be loading "Hot_Pron_codec.dmg" or "killer_tune.sh" instead of an .exe. It all comes back to the dancing bunny problem. The best we tech guys can do is educate where we can, and take steps like the ones listed above to minimize the damage they can do. Because I don't care which OS you give them PEBKAC problems will NEVER go away. After all this problem wouldn't exist in the first place if folks had actually bothered applying the patch the MSFT released in OCTOBER. Just further proof that they ain't exactly brain trusts we are talking about here.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Many Microsoft screw ups could be managed by changing its default settings, but unfortunately Windows caters to Grandmothers who can't follow complicated instructions such as go to run, type d:\start.exe, much less mount /dev/hdc -t iso9660 -r /cdrom, or sudo apt-get install omgponies. What really pisses me off is that the simple tools for managing common system administration is not even included with the home version, which is the version that needs the admin tools because it is more likely to be infected due to the default settings. The group policy editor is how you should disable autorun, but it isn't included with XP Home. If it were included it would be more like XP Pro, which should be their lowest version. They should have an XP tech version that allows you to increase TCP connections, and import policies without Active Directory, and allow more that 10 SMB connections, and be able to update other XP boxen with its own installed Windows patches. Oh well, at least I don't always have to tell my Mom to find My Computer, then the D Drive, which she cannot do. I just tell her to insert the damn disc. So what's my solution to this whole fiasco? ESET Nod32. Pay for it and update it. It's not perfect, but what is?
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If they don't support it, they can't play Blu-ray (and HD-DVD before that went under). Ok well what is the average consumer going to do: Blame the AACS-LA, or which ever nebulous industry licensing authority is responsible, or blame the OS maker?
Goes double since the media industry doesn't have to knuckle under. Remember most people watch movies on their TVs. While it isn't a trivial amount who watch on computers, it isn't the majority either. Thus they can get away with just selling to people with players while users scream at MS for "not supporting HD". Besides, you know Apple would (they do) and would use it as a marketing point.
So I see their choice as the correct one. It gives the consumers the most options. The OS works just fine with no HDCP unless it is demanded. If it is demanded, it is supported.
Besides, you can just as easily argue that nVidia, ATi and Intel should have killed it. If the graphics adapter doesn't support it, it's a moot issue. However they do.
Just because you've never noticed them doesn't mean you've never gotten a virus. Modern viruses are more intended to be quiet and do their spamming/backdoor thing these days, since users who find them may attempt to remove them.
And no, antivirus is not much protection.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Sorry, but I'm afraid you are wrong. I know because I tried it once. I actually gave Linux (Kubuntu) to one of the "hot lesbos" types, and guess what? He managed to make it unbootable in less than 5 days. How? By typing in "Linux Programs" into Google and downloading a bunch of crap from Freshmeat and ending up in dependency hell. I finally had to lock him down in XP worse than any BOFH and he still has to bring it back 2 to 3 times a year to clean out the crap. And sticking them on Linux won't work for 1 and 3 because they can't run what their friends are running and you will be SO fired the first time they get a printer from Walmart and you can't make it work. To quote Forrest Gump-"Stupid is as stupid does."
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
chkrootkit, tripwire, clamav, shorewall, john-the-ripper, and snort run on a lot of systems considered super secure by their users.
Some people consider their systems super secure because they know they are not they guess they are.
The question on freebsd-security a few years ago was what was the best way to avoid denial of service attacks if you are logging to lpr. (one of the obvious suggestions is do not log repeated messages, just the number of times the message has repeated. this will increase the work required to kill your server by running through all the paper and hanging until more boxes of paper are fed to the printers.)
That was the same list that made me realize that you should not have passwords on multiuser systems, or servers in general.
Do you really think that people use passwords like this
makepasswd --char=32 --count=10
CLWwBsm1c15IFadg4KTjrHhCBjFP8RNI -- for slashdot
RLQaXqSEfRHgLnwjjbgoJU5y4Uya2hM6 -- for gmail
NebgFMATH990vB8US8CE4zMgeR7uum02 -- for Administrator
SFa0qT5nIQuLYtTsq44I8336ghEBApiD -- for user account
smcruMr8rzE6PFHzus8AmPcIoKNFy0Rh -- for facebook
L6wynpgAHoINdQm2CWwXdfSiJrBzQ8YG -- for myspace
Q3D1JBVXtgPNNo4bm16WAcKPMhox8s6C -- for banking
L1hEhuisoFcnoyGEYxPYqW8Hq4Qs2EmY -- for retirement account
2RqaobNEKyQIIoUVoFPty6EruLQhVE0F -- for work login
s0zJFsLiWCSN0e5fCEvpi48GV4D0PjyH -- for paypal
Phishing sites are one of the best ways to effectively get the information and tools needed to illicitly act on behalf of someone else.
At some point public key logins via ssl will become the norm, until then, passwords will be the week point in most systems.
Realize that even though debian had the ultra limp ssl keys generated it was still seems to be more productive to use password guessing than trying to try brute forcing an almost known key. Passwords suck that bad.
I would not be surprised if a sizable number of systems (more than 10%) in Arizona could be broken into this week with a dictionary attack of:
cardinals
cardina1s
Cardina1s
For those that want an analogy, imagine zoning laws that required NORAD style doors on all buildings and twenty percent of the population deciding that it is stupid and refusing to lock their doors. You would have a situation similar to the computer landscape today.
Work bio at MMWD
Neither article describes how to stop the autorun.inf file from being processed on all removable media
So, IS there a way to stop the autorun.inf file from being processed on all removable media?
And I think that is the main point made by the article - yeah, sure, with a bit of spin too. With all the qualifications you have on your statements, you are technically correct. However, if there are no clear instructions on how to stop the autorun.inf file from being processed on ALL media, removable or otherwise, Microsoft should provide them or explicitly say that it isn't possible. And the researchers could probably approach Microsoft in a less accusatory manner. People just want to keep their systems safe.