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Kaspersky Customer Database Exposed

secmartin writes "A hacker has managed to gain access to several databases via a SQL injection vulnerability on Kaspersky's US website. He has posted several screenshots and a list of available tables; judging from the table names, the information available includes data on bugs and user- and reseller accounts. The hacker has indicated that no confidential information will be posted on the Internet, but since a large part of the URLs used was visible in screenshots, it will only be a matter of time before somebody else manages to duplicate this."

175 comments

  1. Obligatory xkcd reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Here's the reference, for those who still haven't seen it:
    http://xkcd.com/327/

  2. SQL injection? by Yvan256 · · Score: 0

    I use plain CSV text files, you insensitive clods!

    1. Re:SQL injection? by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure there are both ODBC and OLE drivers for 'text files', while I've never played with them (just done SQL, Oracle, DB2, and Access), I would imagine this sort of vulnerability could exist with a text file as well. Of course not if you're just directly reading them with file streams, but if you're using ODBC or OLE... and no, I can't imagine the scenario that would be the proper use for that.

  3. Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Our IT department switched us from trend micro to Kaspersky a few months ago. I haven't done any research on the merits or drawbacks of either, but what I do know is this:

    1) On our ancient desktop machines (Think 1.8ghz pentium 4's with 512 megs of ram) performance is a lot worse now than before we switched.

    2) Since the switch we've had some pretty serious downtime due to a virus got in on some old unpatched windows 2000 machines and then proceeded to wreak havok.

    3) SQL injection isn't that hard to prevent. Seriously.

    Granted none of that is enough to conclusively say that Kaspersky is a terrible product, the virus may very well have happened with Trend Micro as well, but as an end user my first impressions are less than positive.

    1. Re:Awesome by sqlrob · · Score: 5, Informative

      4) What were these doing accessible on a net facing computer? You can't hack what's not there.

    2. Re:Awesome by hannson · · Score: 1

      On our ancient desktop machines (Think 1.8ghz pentium 4's with 512 megs of ram) performance is a lot worse now than before we switched.

      Last time I checked Trend Micro won't install on machines with less than 1GB ram.

    3. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Fox news says you can hack a computer wirelessly. I believe a trusted news source way more than a nerd like you.

    4. Re:Awesome by MrEricSir · · Score: 1, Funny

      Trend Micro? Even Norton is better than Trend.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    5. Re:Awesome by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've worked in secure environments (several different nuke plants, and several different casinos), where things were truly off the net.

      That said, with something like customer data for Kaspersky, it's impractical to have this data isolated in that manner. For starters, people buy and sell this product over the internet. Right there, you have to have an interface into your database from a remotely accessed client. Also I'd imagine Kaspersky has offices in many different countries and while I'm sure VPNs and such help, the computers trading the valuable data are still on the internets. The more I think about it, the more I think that what you propose would be impossible for most companies to implement.

      I'm all for more security though, most places don't error on the side of caution. Nuke plants tend to (and actually security it generally even 'tougher' at casinos)...

    6. Re:Awesome by VoxMagis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Really?

      Since switching several companies from other products to Kaspersky...

      No viruses have crept through the systems - none.

      We had one brief period of downtime on one customer related to a bad configuration of the admin server (my fault, still I guess it could have been clearer).

      Performance is overall quite good, even on older machines. On newer machines, people don't even notice that it's running.

      I admit though, I'm irritated about the issue of the original post, which has NOTHING to do with the product itself. Sounds to me like their entire web dev team needs a serious overhaul, or at least a few more night classes at the local community college ;)

      --
      -- I really need to bleed off some of this /. karma.
    7. Re:Awesome by Nethead · · Score: 5, Funny

      AC: Fox news says you can hack a computer wirelessly. I believe a trusted news source way more than a nerd like you.

      Isn't 'Fair and Balanced' a router setting?

      --
      -- I have a private email server in my basement.
    8. Re:Awesome by htnmmo · · Score: 1

      3) SQL injection isn't that hard to prevent. Seriously.

      Yep, just use Java and PreparedStatements

    9. Re:Awesome by kybred · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm all for more security though, most places don't error on the side of caution. Nuke plants tend to (and actually security it generally even 'tougher' at casinos)...

      Of course it is! With nukes plants your merely talking about human lives. With casinos; well, there your talking about money.

    10. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds to me like their entire web dev team needs a serious overhaul, or at least a few more night classes at the local community college ;)

      Or a cut in the alcohol quota.

    11. Re:Awesome by kiwirob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I can't be too hard to isolate the physical database servers behind a reasonable secure firewall.

      Have a web server communicate through a proprietary communications layer, possibly XML, to a dual homed intermediary server behind a firewall which in turn accesses the database server on a local network. No direct net access for the DB server and the intermediary dual homed server simply runs a minimal config and firewall to only accept inbound connections from the web server.

      So it's impossible for any direct SQL statements to get to the Database Server without passing through your communications layer, which of course has sufficient integrity checking to ensure no field overruns or unintended access is permitted.

      Sure it adds to the complexity but this company earns millions in revenue and is in the "security" business so they should have their house in order.

    12. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Prepared statements are not exclusive to Java.

    13. Re:Awesome by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you can't prevent sql injection, do you think you'll be able to properly design a communication layer that prevents it as well? Not validating inputs is not validating inputs.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    14. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work in a secure environment (along the line of a massive casino), and we have account and financial data that needs to be exposed to the web. The financial data is public, so people seeing it is not a problem, but people changing it would be disastrous. To protect the financial information we have one way replication, the machines that are exposed to the web have the data replicated to them, and have no ability to write back.
       
      The account information is a little bit more tricky, as it needs to be edited from the web, logins confirmed, etc, so to help with this we simply replicate information relevant to an account once, and only once, their session is authenticated. When writes need to occur they need to be submitted within a secure session, and only fields which we have flagged to be writable can be replicated back up the chain.

    15. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes you can. regular keystrokes can be captured with a cheap antenna and some software. It was even posted on slashdot, which is usually weeks behind... look it up

    16. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course it is! With nukes plants your merely talking about human lives. With casinos; well, there your talking about money.

      With nuke plants, the only real motive for breaking the security from outside is for infrastructure disruption and terrorism.

      With casinos, the motive is the millions of dollars in cash moving around.

      There are far more greedy people than there are violent mass murderers.

      A man who gets bitten by a hundred stinging gnats a day will be more diligent about swatting insects than a man who sees a tsetse fly every five or six years. No matter that that one tsetse may be far more dangerous than the gnats could ever be.

    17. Re:Awesome by religious+freak · · Score: 1

      Yeah, so you can't log in, you can't see your previous history, there are no accounts? How exactly would what you propose actually work?

      This is like attacking someone for loading software on their pc because then it becomes vulnerable to attack. Without some data on the net, being on the net is pointless - you just need to secure your data correctly.

      --
      If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
    18. Re:Awesome by Aranykai · · Score: 1

      Who the heck moded that troll? Nice show of wit Nethead.

      --
      If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
    19. Re:Awesome by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Kaspersky is always victimised by its own feature. Heavy heuristics. If they remove it, they would have no difference from so-called "Free" antiviruses. If they keep it, they get bad feedback for performance.

      The unpatched Win2k? That is one thing only really overkill heavyweight stuff can save, e.g. the discontinued (for obvious reasons) eSafe desktop. When Win2k is unpatched, it is unsecure at kernel level, almost nothing can save it. We have Win2K boxes in TV business running some very expensive to upgrade software/hardware but we use them with zero connection policy. Yes, no connection, not even LAN or Modem. When Adaptec guys etc. ships a update to drivers for example, we use CD/DVD or floppy to update the machine.

      I thought the new "white list" approach would fix the performance hit... Doesn't make difference? You should really convince that IT department to upgrade the RAM of the P4 boxes. 512MB and commercial AV software is no go.

    20. Re:Awesome by Poltras · · Score: 5, Funny

      Prepared statements are not exclusive to Java.

      Shhh... He's a Java programmer, don't tell him there are other languages out there, he's gonna screw them up.

    21. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Actually it could be fairly trivial to move most customer information off the internet facing computers.

      Lets say I fill in a complete registration form (name, address, phone, etc). Shortly after registration most of this personal information could be moved via a one-way process to a non-web facing database. The only thing that needs to remain on the web facing database would be login credentials and maybe product purchase history. As long as email addresses are not used for usernames the information would be pretty useless to hackers.

      The data stored on the "internal" database could still be accessed internally via the internet over VPN or other secure means.

      The point being that it should be fairly easy to make the personal information of your customers completely inaccessible by someone hacking your public websites.

    22. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I work in a secure environment (along the line of a massive casino)

      A bank, I presume?

    23. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Last time I checked I can install on faster test machines and then sysprep images out to much lower specced machines via Ghost or however you want to send them with all the software I want installed.

    24. Re:Awesome by Cryptacool · · Score: 0

      Fox news says you can hack a computer wirelessly. I believe a trusted news source way more than a nerd like you.

      Ok so this is flame bait, but really, you can hack computers wirelessly :(

      http://news.cnet.com/Apple-Macs-vulnerable-to-Wi-Fi-hijacks/2100-1002_3-6118245.html

      And its on OS X :( Doh.

      All that involves is getting someone to connect to an access point. Of course no one would ever connect to an unsecured access point called linksys, and it's not like your computer won't auto connect to previously used AP.

      This is an example and obviously fixed, however I'd be willing to bet that other bugs that work in a similar manner on all OS's exist (or will exist shortly.)

    25. Re:Awesome by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      Our filrewall looks at incomming connections and evaluates the strings against SQL injection tactics. Helps reduce the risk anyway 8)

    26. Re:Awesome by Crayon+Kid · · Score: 2, Funny

      Our filrewall looks at incomming connections and evaluates the strings against SQL injection tactics.

      I'm hoping it wasn't you who wrote the filtering rules...

      --
      i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
    27. Re:Awesome by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      Dammnnn iPhone keyboarddd 8)

    28. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so, as they say, you're doing it wrong, and happily proud of the solution?

      there is nothing fancy in sql injection, just fucking code the application right. the microsoft mentality of adding control/security layers to any application is plain wrong.

    29. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      That had nothing to do with cars...

    30. Re:Awesome by ultranova · · Score: 1

      3) SQL injection isn't that hard to prevent. Seriously.

      Yep, just use Java and PreparedStatements

      Or more generally: use parametrized queries exclusively.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    31. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our filrewall looks at incomming connections and evaluates the strings against SQL injection tactics.

      I'm hoping it wasn't you who wrote the filtering rules...

      Does he work for Google?

    32. Re:Awesome by lennier · · Score: 1

      It's official: Tsetse flies are the new obligatory metaphor.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    33. Re:Awesome by flappinbooger · · Score: 1

      I was repairing a customers computer that was infested with spyware and viruses (virii). I took off all the crap that was installed and cleaned it up. Obviously, it wasn't working. They had Kaspersky installed. Not any more.

      I thought twice before I removed it, Kaspersky I've heard of. But, it wasn't complaining at all about the infestation. Sorry, guys!

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
    34. Re:Awesome by n1ckml007 · · Score: 1

      Is 'whoosh' a router setting?

    35. Re:Awesome by sootman · · Score: 1

      Who says they were outward-facing? (I assume by 'net' you meant 'Net' as in 'Internet.') Happens all the time: someone brings in a virus-laden laptop, connects to the network, vulnerable machines die.

      Besides, despite what you think about #2, points 1 and 3 are still valid.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    36. Re:Awesome by Sinning · · Score: 0

      or a boost

    37. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work in a secure environment (along the line of a massive casino)

      A bank, I presume?

      No, that would be a charity.

    38. Re:Awesome by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      Yeah but only insane sysadmins would "do it live", oh wait.

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    39. Re:Awesome by NuclearRampage · · Score: 1

      What firewall is that?

    40. Re:Awesome by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      >> I work in a secure environment (along the line of a massive casino)

      > A bank, I presume?

      Fannie Mae?

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    41. Re:Awesome by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      At least, not until you reach 3rd dan black hat.

    42. Re:Awesome by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      Checkpoint

  4. What about the update servers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Who cares if some forums are hacked?

    For that matter, even if they get a customer's account data, the damage is limited if good credit-monitoring is in place.

    I'd be more worried about the update servers being hacked and millions of us downloading bogus updates.

    1. Re:What about the update servers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kaspersky outsources almost all (if not all) their ecommerce. They would have little or no credit card info in their customer database.

    2. Re:What about the update servers? by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      I bought my copy of Kaspersky from Best Buy. They don't have any of my personal data.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    3. Re:What about the update servers? by SpazmodeusG · · Score: 1

      Well if you have a forum account there you should assume that your password there is now in a dictionary of known passwords that hackers use.

      This can be a problem if you have 1 common password you use online.

    4. Re:What about the update servers? by SethJohnson · · Score: 1

      Better SQL database packages support password encryption. Even getting admin priveleges won't allow you to select a password column in clear text.

      Seth

    5. Re:What about the update servers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the updates are RSA signed (don't know if that's the case here) it wouldn't matter.

  5. Talk about bad timing by arogier · · Score: 1

    I just switched to Kaspersky last night, after my McAfee subscription expired. "Haxor et Machina?"

    1. Re:Talk about bad timing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      get a corporate license. There is no BS expiration.
      That's the biggest scam they've got going.
      Also, if company you work for has a PER USER license for McAfee or Norton, you can install it on as MANY machines YOU use as you like. Yup, no limit, no expiration, no diff if it's your home or work PC.
      (a lot of people these days continue to work from home after hours and use their own PC with VPN and no antivirus or old AV software - big problem since people are more likely not to pay attention and go on sites that may be bugged or install software with spyware/malware/etc)

  6. Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Awesome, in a small amount of time 3 of the services I use have all had their information compromised.

    Can't wait to have the rest of them owned.

    Also, shouldn't a company who's focus is security, make sure they don't have a problem with such things as, oh I don't know... SQL Injection?

    1. Re:Great by Cthefuture · · Score: 1

      Also, shouldn't a company who's focus is security, make sure they don't have a problem with such things as, oh I don't know... SQL Injection?

      At this this point I don't have enough information to blame them (I DNRTFA).

      I struggle with 3rd party software myself. I work in security also but I can't design, write and maintain every single possible piece of software I use. Therefore I'm pretty much always vulnerable to potentially embarrassing bugs in 3rd party software. I can use my knowledge to limit damage as much as possible but there is no way I could ever have time to make everything I use as secure as the software I write.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    2. Re:Great by aymanh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Judging from the table names in the article, it looks like they are maintaining virtually all of their data in a single database hosted on a machine that is connected to the Internet and accessible by anyone. This is a grave mistake in my opinion, regardless of whether they are using 3rd party software or not.

      --
      python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
  7. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Who sed anything about Linux? I sed a *secure* OS. Oh and Im a level 120 yellow mold.

  8. Re:Secure? Sure. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since I don't have mod points... Just so you know, you're absurdly offtopic, and you're both wrong.

    Linux can't prevent a SQL injection attack. Not writing shitty software prevents SQL injection attacks, no matter what OS you're on.

    Linux is ready for the desktop, and is likely still easier to install than Windows. But the desktop is even less relevant to a discussion about a server-side SQL injection attack.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  9. Re:Secure? Sure. by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The trolls, do not feed them.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  10. fuck! that will teach me to pay for software! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've been "borrowing" our company's corporate AV sw that doesn't require registration and has perpetual license for the past 10 years... Then 6 months ago I decided to go legal and spent $70 for 3 user license. I paid with my credit card, registered with my email address and now this! Never again :)

  11. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "web sights"??? What the hell?

  12. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    If you want a virtually 100% secure OS, there is always OS X.

  13. oh well... by submain · · Score: 1

    It seems someone needs to add backslashes to their SQL statements...

    1. Re:oh well... by this+great+guy · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. Escaping is error-prone as you will invariably fail to escape some special character you don't know about. The right way to fix SQL injection is to use parametrized queries.

    2. Re:oh well... by kbrasee · · Score: 1, Informative

      Wait, why is this funny? It's +5 informative.

    3. Re:oh well... by Tweenk · · Score: 1, Informative

      Either that, or use the server's escaping function, which will be correct. There is no way to create parametrized SQL queries with the PHP / MySQL combo if you don't have the mysqli extension (which is unfortunately far from rare).

      --
      Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
    4. Re:oh well... by Repton · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So, the standard way of programatically querying databases, which is easier than building and escaping your own queries, and which makes you completely immune to SQL injection, is generally unavailable in a very popular combination of website technologies?

      WTF?

      --
      Repton.
      They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
    5. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      The right way to fix SQL injection is to use parametrized queries.

      Huh?

    6. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://us2.php.net/manual/en/pdo.prepare.php

    7. Re:oh well... by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

      You would use placeholders, that fixes the problem. Anyone who knows the first things about SQL should know that.

    8. Re:oh well... by octaene · · Score: 1

      I agree with parent; the problem is parameterized queries don't exist for every type of SQL statement you'd want to write, that's why folks get trapped into escaping user input. The only foolproof solution is to not accept user input. :-)

    9. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatever database server that guy is using is seriously broken. As in, extremely fucking broken. Or he's just clueless.

      A parameterized query is supposed to be compiled into a form that takes the "dynamic" parts as arguments. If you pass it '; drop table blah;', it will take '; drop table blah' as an argument, not a language construct. Which is to say, if your parametrized query is something like "SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = ?", and you passed it a suitably constructed "; drop table", the query would look for rows whose id was "; drop table".

    10. Re:oh well... by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 1

      So you're saying you can't call MySQL procedures from PHP? Those would be parameterized and typed. You should still check any character input, but you should be pretty safe from SQL injection at that point.

    11. Re:oh well... by this+great+guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The blog post you linked to validates my statement: if parametized queries are not used by a stored procedure, then the code calling that procedure is vulnerable to SQL injection. Duh!

    12. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's hyperbole. Nowhere near "generally unavailable".

      I think what he was referring to was cheap shared hosts with poorly managed environments. But even among those, it's not true anymore.

      The mysqli extension is included in the default php 5 distribution, and pdo (with drivers for all major rdbms) is included with 5.1.

    13. Re:oh well... by GleeBot · · Score: 1

      So, the standard way of programatically querying databases, which is easier than building and escaping your own queries, and which makes you completely immune to SQL injection, is generally unavailable in a very popular combination of website technologies?

      WTF?

      Popular != good.

    14. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      parameterized queries don't exist for every type of SQL statement you'd want to write

      [Citation Needed]

    15. Re:oh well... by KermodeBear · · Score: 4, Informative

      So, the standard way of programatically querying databases, which is easier than building and escaping your own queries, and which makes you completely immune to SQL injection, is generally unavailable in a very popular combination of website technologies?

      Repton, you missed the part about the mysqli extension. A lot of functionality in PHP have been moved out into extensions. Enabling them is as easy as modifying the .ini file.

      I know that the poster above you was whining about it not being available on servers, but to be honest, I've never run into any (credible, reliable) hosting service that doesn't already have it enabled.

      And hell - if it is something that is good to have, why pick a host that doesn't have it?

      --
      Love sees no species.
    16. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <snark>Popular !== good</snark>

      But seriously, you're way off-base and lamp is a fine stack. It's possible to fuck up in any environment.

      Also keep in mind that this (the epidemic last year) was assisted by vulnerabilities in IIS and MS SQL Server. Apache and mysql have a better track record with core vulnerabilities.

      And okay, Microsoft's stack has improved. But if you're using the state of lamp in 1999 as evidence for your opinion, I would like to point you to the state of IIS at that same time.

      All of this is beside the point, though. Parent and GP are just plain wrong.

      (Disclaimer: I'm very fond of PHP and aware of the merits of having a strict equality operator in a dynamically-typed language.)

    17. Re:oh well... by QuoteMstr · · Score: 1

      That's garbage. Parametrized queries have their place, sure. But if a quoting facility is letting "special" characters through, it has a bug and needs to be fixed. Guess what: one way of implementing parametrized queries is through automatic escaping!

    18. Re:oh well... by amirulbahr · · Score: 1

      sscanf

    19. Re:oh well... by amirulbahr · · Score: 1

      I meant sprintf()

    20. Re:oh well... by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 1

      Popular !== good

      What language is !== considered an inequality operator? C, C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby (and the list goes on) all use != as the inequality operator.

    21. Re:oh well... by dkf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Guess what: one way of implementing parametrized queries is through automatic escaping!

      It's a slow way of doing it though, since the database engine will need to reparse the statement from scratch each time. Far better to use a real parameterized query when the engine can cache a compiled form. (A performance boost and more security at the same time? Win-win! What's not to like?)

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    22. Re:oh well... by Zwicky · · Score: 1

      What language is !== considered an inequality operator? C, C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby (and the list goes on) all use != as the inequality operator.

      Strict inequality operator (I believe there are others too).

      --
      "Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
    23. Re:oh well... by Skal+Tura · · Score: 1

      You got to be kidding right? Just shows how lost you are!

      mysql_escape_string(), and done :)

      or the cheap way around: str_replace("'", '', $parameter), or just add \ on front of the ', and wrap all your parameters into '', ie. column='value'

    24. Re:oh well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

      You should be using prepared statements. And you should stop using the mysql_ functions. Use mysqli, or better yet, use PDO, or better better yet, use one of the dozens of great abstraction layers out there.

      In any case, you've got a bad habit there. Don't feel too bad, though. By the looks of this thread, you're not alone. It's a trap: Beware of developing contorted reasoning for the purpose of avoiding changing your habits.

  14. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've never really bought into that idea. I mean, if a casual user reads a troll post and sees it go uncontested, their quote possibly going to believe it is true.

    Avoid giving them fodder but if their shouting loudly enough, make sure there is some balance.

  15. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hahahahahahaha .. a hahahaha oh man I haven't laughed so much all week, it could only be funnier if you actually believed that.

  16. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's because the gaping backdoors are in Apple users, not in Apple software.

  17. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've never fucked a girl, but I hope to, someday. Somehow.

    There, I fixed that for you.

  18. Just got back from buying their retail product. by WiiVault · · Score: 4, Funny

    Great timing eh?

  19. Re:Secure? Sure. by Jamie's+Nightmare · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You yourself are a well known troll, but I'll bite.

    He is indeed off topic, but he's right. That prompted you to mention that Linux wasn't at fault. Problem is, the post you replied to made no claim that Linux was insecure. At all. The insecurity lies in you, which is why make the absurd claim that Linux is ready for mainstream use.

    --
    "When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
  20. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, it was insensitive. But I was still funny! :D

  21. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny, sure maybe it was 5 years ago.

  22. Re:Secure? Sure. by Afforess · · Score: 0

    "It is best to keep your mouth shut and appear a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt" -Mark Twain

    I agree. Except that you quoted the wrong guy. Or rather, the wrong text. It's a paraphrase of the Bible. Proverbs 17:28.

    --
    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
  23. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so how does it make you feel to see your fellow linux goosesteppers modding completely relevant posts down because they're not pro-linux? it's like a little religious cult.

  24. Re:Little bobby tables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thats brilliant, bookmarked.

  25. Re:Secure? Sure. by pxlmusic · · Score: 1

    and i've fucked several, but am lacking in Linux proficiency...

    --
    "If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
  26. Re:frosty piss by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why to people even waste their own time with this type of shit? It's not even a good troll.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  27. OT: Sig reply by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 1

    I get 100 mbit fiber for $65/mo in a small town in Iowa.

    What carrier is that? (Assuming that is 100 Mbps, not a cap :-)

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:OT: Sig reply by ion.simon.c · · Score: 1

      I have also requested info from this guy about ISP. Hopefully he'll get to me! *stares at watch* Come on! It's been half an hour already!

    2. Re:OT: Sig reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have also requested info from this guy about ISP. Hopefully he'll get to me! *stares at watch* Come on! It's been half an hour already!

      The connection has a lot of bandwidth, but the latency is through the roof...

    3. Re:OT: Sig reply by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      http://liscofiber.com/

      And that is per second, yes. There is no cap. There is vague mention of not being a bandwidth hog in the terms, and some unfortunate language (apparently watching five hours of video is not considered "normal use", so clearly these terms were written by people who've never seen YouTube).

      However, I never got a single complaint for all the torrents I ran.

      Unfortunately, I just moved across town, and the fiber hasn't come here yet, so I'm back to 1 mbit DSL until spring.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  28. Re:Secure? Sure. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Moron can't even spell, let alone make a coherent statement. Hail? Hail is a form of precipitation, not a salutation. Moron. Spic, kike, coon, nigger, all in the same sentence with Jesus. Phhhht. There should be a minimum IQ test that needs to be passed before anyone can get on the internet. IQ should be AT LEAST double your shoe size. Or, four times the size of your penis, if you don't wear shoes.......

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  29. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've never really bought into that idea. I mean, if a casual user reads a troll post and sees it go uncontested, their quote possibly going to believe it is true.

    Reasons not to feed them:
    1) It makes people waste mod points on the people replying. It is wasting, because replies to a troll are never ontopic and are *very* rarely anything interesting or helpful. Better to let the whole thread disappear with a few mods.
    2) Some trolls troll anonymously, and then post with an account refuting their own post to gain mod points with a sane post. Twitter is notorious for this. Anyone replying to a troll should be modded offtopic or overrated (depending on if you want to effect their karma).

  30. The shoemaker's kids go barefoot. by baomike · · Score: 1

    EOM

  31. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  32. Re:Secure? Sure. by redcaboodle · · Score: 1

    But the user backdoor is no pathway for an SQL injection.

    --
    -- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
  33. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Rather, a pathway for semen ejection.

    Whoosh? Maybe.

  34. Probably no credit card data compromised... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Kaspersky outsources almost all (if not all) their ecommerce. They would have little or no credit card info in their customer database.

  35. Re:Secure? Sure. by renegadesx · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot, we can tell when your lying!

    --
    Make SELinux enforcing again!
  36. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop feeding the trolls. You're offtopic. So am I.

  37. Re:Secure? Sure. by FlyingBishop · · Score: 1

    Level 12 dwarf, thank you very much.

  38. Kaspersky does have its problems by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Overall, according to the testing agencies, it's a pretty decent AV with very high detection rates - almost always in the top five or ten.

    It's administration over a network is pretty complicated, using its Administration Kit. The basics aren't hard, but it's a very complicated product with a high degree of customization possible which makes administering it hard.

    It does have a bad problem with false positives - it seems to want to tag any exe encapsulated in an archive as a "trojan". I had a bunch of utilities for unattended installs of Windows sitting around and it went wild tagging a lot of them as "trojans" - even though most are well known utilities used for installing or slipstreaming Windows, and if any of them had trojans, somebody would have caught that by now. This is a know issue with KAV and apparently they're not doing much to correct it, according to comments on their forums.

    But ALL the virus engines these days are behind the curve of actual viruses in the wild - so it's no surprise that the occasional virus gets through. One got through on one of my client machines a week or two ago without being spotted by either KAV or Spyware Terminator. A very nasty one, too, that was almost a rootkit - took me some hours to fully get rid of it. Downloaded from a hostile Web site by one of the staff accidentally, I think, since the client has a hardware firewall in front of the network.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    1. Re:Kaspersky does have its problems by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Overall, according to the testing agencies, it's a pretty decent AV with very high detection rates - almost always in the top five or ten.

      [...]

      It does have a bad problem with false positives

      The two are related. It's easy to create a virus killer that has a very high detection rate, but it takes talent to do so without also increasing the number of false positives.

      I used to like ESET Nod32, because it was fast and fairly accurate. But lately, it reports way to many false positives to be useful. Combined with the latest version being incredibly bloated and slow compared to the preceding version, I can only speculate that the original authors no longer are in charge, and it's now run by businessmen. Much like what happened with Symantec taking over Norton, come to think of it.

  39. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hail. Verb

    Infinitive
    to hail

    Third person singular
    hails

    Simple past
    hailed

    Past participle
    hailed

    Present participle
    hailing

    to hail (third-person singular simple present hails, present participle hailing, simple past and past participle hailed)

          1. (transitive) To greet.

                        Hail Linzen

          2. (transitive) To praise enthusiastically.

                        He was hailed as a hero.

          3. (transitive) To call out to loudly in order to gain the attention of.

                        Hail a taxi

          4. be a native of

                        She hails from Kalamazoo

  40. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And apparently there's no possible way that Mark Twain actually said that. As in he never read that passage and paraphrased it into the quote that was mentioned.

    Fucking fundie. Go stone some gay people.

  41. Re:Secure? Sure. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

    Gratuitous journal whore located here.

  42. Re:Secure? Sure. by pxlmusic · · Score: 1

    you're right, my Linux proficiency is anything but.

    i am learning, though!

    --
    "If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
  43. Re:Secure? Sure. by mrclisdue · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot, we can tell when you're lying!

    And being /. we can fix your glaring spelling/grammar errors without seeming the least bit pedantic.

  44. Wait just a second here.. by Strep · · Score: 0, Troll

    Since when was it supposed to be legal to do this? This hacker should be thrown in the slammer. What the hell is this world coming to when you blame the vendor/sql/whatever-else when a "user" intentionally performs a malicious attack for whatever reason? This guy is a criminal and no better than any of the virus and malware writers out there. Do any of you have a clue as to how much these cyber-criminals actually cost the rest of us? Here's a partial answer: More than I want to pay.

    1. Re:Wait just a second here.. by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      I bet one of the Kaspersky rivals will hire them as security consultant. That will be his "award" for threatening thousands of users privacy. After years of Windows usage, I can even guess the company.

    2. Re:Wait just a second here.. by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

      That he published his finding and that he has not released customer data shows that he wants the problem to be fixed rather than for people to have their data stolen. Its better to have some curious hacker who is only interested in a little fun and challenge and who reports it find this than rather than some big time identity theft scam artist.

  45. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows is easy to install
    linux i have problems with

  46. mod_security by X.25 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can't count number of time I've recommended usage of mod_security in order to prevent these types of crap.

    I can count, though, number of times people implemented it: 0.

    1. Re:mod_security by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

      That, and using SQL placeholders. The best way to prevent insertion attack is use placeholders. Very simple. I am surprised people dont know how to use that feature, its in every SQL book.

    2. Re:mod_security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That, and using SQL placeholders. The best way to prevent insertion attack is use placeholders. Very simple. I am surprised people dont know how to use that feature, its in every SQL book.

      ...because 90% of people who call themselves web developers just go out and copy/paste scripts from "free script" web sites (most of which are pretty craptacular in the first place) and never really learn or understand what they are doing.

  47. Re:Fisty Roast!! by Lucky75 · · Score: 1

    Of course, the easiest solution to this is to not buy Kaspersky and just crack it ;) Or use linux...

    --
    DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
  48. For Gods sake escape those quotes by physburn · · Score: 1
    Just escape any quotes in the input and your DBs will be safe from injection. In Java:

    String escapeQuotes(String s){
    if (s==null){ s=""; }
    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
    char ch[] = new char[1];
    char con[] = new char[3];
    con[0] = '%';
    for(int i=0;i<s.length();i++){
    char c = ch[0] = s.charAt(i);
    if (c==0x27 || c==0x60 || c==22 || c=='%'){
    int a = c/16;
    int b = c-a*16;
    con[1] = Character.forDigit(a,16);
    con[2] = Character.forDigit(b,16);
    sb.append(con);
    } else {
    sb.append(ch);
    }
    }
    return sb.toString();
    }

    That wasn't difficult, was it now. Did i miss any characters?

    Java Programming FEED

    1. Re:For Gods sake escape those quotes by Saija · · Score: 1

      hmm it looks good, but why do i need to code all that if with a simple parametrized query i could almost do the same?
      this could serve i think...

      --
      Slashdot ya no es que lo era! ;)
    2. Re:For Gods sake escape those quotes by FlyingGuy · · Score: 0, Troll

      How about something even simpler....

      Simply do not accept ANYTHING that does not consist of a..z.A..Z,0..9 !

      Accepting anything other then that is simply stupid.

      You can discourage it on the front end by using a JS onkeyup method and on the back end you just strip them out, or if you detect anything other then those, simply reject the entire form.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    3. Re:For Gods sake escape those quotes by nyctopterus · · Score: 1

      Yes you should only accept az AZ 09 No one ever uses other characters for legitimate purposes Its as simple as 2 2 4 people honestly

    4. Re:For Gods sake escape those quotes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep and you'll lose the business of families like the O'leary's and the O'Callaghan's.

      Oh and if you are taking any input other than single words, you will probably need punctuation.

    5. Re:For Gods sake escape those quotes by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      TheyareIrishwhoneedsthoseanyway Imeanreallyifyoulettheminyour databasewillbefullofwhiskeyand protistantwhishkeyatthat

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
  49. On this day... by geekmansworld · · Score: 1

    I'm so very glad I got our company to use Avast.

  50. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know living in the ghetto must be tough and all, but it appears you have the capabilities to steal a computer, so one would guess you'd probably have the capabilities to steal a dictionary. You should try using one some time. Hell, here's a reference site for you: http://www.dictionary.com/

    It even negates the need for you to buy one. Next time that you want to go out on a limb and make some half-hearted want-wit attempt at insulting someones IQ, maybe next time you will think twice.

  51. Re:frosty piss by HisOmniscience · · Score: 1

    Well, he got you to waste your time, and I guess mine, too. Mission accomplished.

  52. Re:Secure? Sure. by Tatsh · · Score: 1

    Object-oriented programming is difficult to use and doesn't increase productivity.

    arguable but I will agree that in C vs C++ I choose C

  53. Re:Fisty Roast!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right, because SQL injection has anything to do with the OS.

  54. Re:frosty piss by johanatan · · Score: 0

    IT's probably a BOT!

  55. Re:Sad by Clanked · · Score: 1

    Why?

    The OS is a tool to get the job done.
    Without knowing anything about you, I am willing to put money of the fact that this guy using windows has accomplished more than you have with your "h4x0r!1" OS.

  56. I love kaspersky by arndawg · · Score: 0

    It doesn't matter if this happend. Because the security you get by buying and installing kaspersky is that they add you on the russian mafias exceptions list. So you buy your freedom sort of. It's like a bar-owner buying off the local mafia. Protection money!

  57. Good Product.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...bad presence. Having worked for them for a year this incident doesn't surprise me. The product is fantastic and developed almost exclusively in Russia. I almost pity the support folks as typically they would end up having a new version dropped into their laps without any notification or training. More often than not they would find out about a new release when they went to the website and found it being listed as available. However the U.S. office is scrambling to gain a business foothold and went from a small group doing fantastic work to a larger one that's run by managers that have little to no concept of the actual product or how it works. The conversion from "geeks in the know" to "were run by PHB's" is never easy and they've lost alot of great talent. I knew what the writing on the wall looked like when they dumped 10k of support emails because they lacked the support staff to handle them and were getting tired of the complaints. To summarize for Kaspersky, despite everything 1980's cinema taught you: US=Bad Russia=Good

  58. Re:Secure? Sure. by msormune · · Score: 1

    No it's not easier than Windows. It's just as easy, IF you have a user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu.

  59. Re:Secure? Sure. by Clopnixus · · Score: 1

    I've had much better experiences installing Linux than with Windows. And I started out with dos 3.3. The most significant advantage is that these days usually all the drivers for your hardware are included in the kernel. Installing Windows is easy enough. Its the hours of tracking down drivers and applications after installing that is a pain in the backside.

  60. Re:Secure? Sure. by Skal+Tura · · Score: 1

    Linux is ready for the desktop, and is likely still easier to install than Windows. But the desktop is even less relevant to a discussion about a server-side SQL injection attack.

    You got to be kidding right? Please say you are kidding!

    Linux is awfull crap on desktop IF you need to be productive, for procrastination (but not gaming) it's OK, but as a professional web dev, i get spooked if i have to use Linux as my workstation, most of the software i need is not there.

    That being said, Linux is absolutely awesome as a server, rock solid, decent performance, very good customizeability, if you know your stuff, you can get hell of a lot of web request processing juice out of a linux box, even on old measly hardware.

  61. Remembering something from TDWTF... by greyblack · · Score: 1
    --
    Everybody uses broad generalizations.
  62. Re:Secure? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is nothing wrong with C++, in fact, you can easily keep all you C-isms in C++. I like the OO approach, even though I dislike C++ stream I/O and templates. My C++ code looks almost like std C but organized in classes rather than a bunch of globals and a tangle of functions. Yeah, it's not textbook C++, but it's a far cry better than std C.

  63. Wrong by TheLink · · Score: 1

    1) Maybe you meant mysql_real_escape_string()?

    Or perhaps mysql_genuine_escape_string_really_no_kidding_this_time().

    2) Just adding \ in front of ' doesn't help you if the attacker puts \ in the parameters.

    Lastly, my suggestion is to avoid PHP if you can. Though you can quickly do half-baked stuff with PHP it's a real pain and more work to do things properly compared to better designed languages.

    --
    1. Re:Wrong by kokojie · · Score: 0

      Better designed languages, Like what?

  64. Re:Secure? Sure. by Tatsh · · Score: 1

    using namespace std;

    eh? :P

  65. Re:Secure? Sure. by skarphace · · Score: 1

    Linux is awfull crap on desktop IF you need to be productive, for procrastination (but not gaming) it's OK, but as a professional web dev, i get spooked if i have to use Linux as my workstation, most of the software i need is not there.

    I could say the exact thing about Windows; Also being a professional web dev. The tools are all there and in most cases, better in my opinion. It's all about the environment in which you like to work. I do know that without the Linux CLI, my work would be much slower.

    Lets race to see who can check in a change and release it to three master servers the quickest.

    --
    Bullish Machine Tzar
  66. Re:Secure? Sure. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    You yourself are a well known troll, but I'll bite.

    And yet, my karma is still excellent. How's yours?

    Oh, I forgot, it must be the massive conspiracy of people who want to see SanityInAnarchy modded up, no matter what he says. I guess I'm more popular than I realized.

    He is indeed off topic, but he's right.

    What, that Linux isn't ready for "the desktop"? I guess I should tell my mother to buy a Mac, then...

    Problem is, the post you replied to made no claim that Linux was insecure.

    Nor was I making any claim that it was. I was responding to both of the ACs -- the first seemed to be claiming that by merely switching to "a secure OS", by which I was assuming Linux or BSD, they would prevent a SQL injection attack.

    So, if anything, I was arguing against Linux being magical security sauce.

    why make the absurd claim that Linux is ready for mainstream use.

    I don't believe I made that claim -- I said "the desktop". Most criteria people bring up for evaluating that are either pure troll (You have to use the commandline for everything! Ten years ago, maybe...) or something which is impossible for anything other than Windows to qualify for, no matter how well written (Will it run all the apps I have now and some I haven't thought of?)

    But, I was avoiding opening that discussion, because it's so offtopic.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  67. Re:Secure? Sure. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Linux is awfull crap on desktop IF you need to be productive,

    Having used all three extensively, I can say with confidence that I was at my most productive on KDE 3, on Kubuntu Hardy.

    Let me define "extensively". In college, I mostly used Linux on the desktop, and OS X (Tiger) on a Powerbook. I didn't mind OS X much, but I wasn't trying to do much with it, either -- taking notes in vim is about as productive in either case, as is writing a paper in OpenOffice.

    For my most recent job, I started out using Windows exclusively, as it was HD-DVD. It wasn't fun to use Windows, but there really wasn't a choice -- it took a delicate balance to get Microsoft's HDiSim to work (Windows XP, not 2K or Vista; Media Player 10, not 9 or 11...) and my few experiments with Wine and virtual machines didn't go anywhere. So I used Eclipse, with Visual Studio .NET to debug, Firefox for web browsing, etc.

    After that was web development, in Ruby on Rails. I immediately booted over to the Linux partition I was keeping on that machine, and ran that exclusively until that laptop died.

    When it did, the only real choice was to borrow an OS X machine (an iMac), running Leopard, and get to work. And that was a love-hate relationship. So many things done right, but so many simple things, day after day, that infuriated me -- the biggest being lack of keyboard shortcuts/navigation, and lack of sloppy focus. Less than two weeks until I got a new Dell with Ubuntu on it.

    The difference was profound -- I hadn't seen it as clearly illustrated before. Just simple things like having a keystroke to pack windows around, not to mention a package manager that doesn't suck.

    So, your mileage may vary, but I am definitely at my most productive on Linux -- unfortunately, it can still access Slashdot, so there is that...

    as a professional web dev, i get spooked if i have to use Linux as my workstation, most of the software i need is not there.

    Are you a .NET developer, or are you referring to some amazing new tools I hadn't heard of?

    Firefox runs on Linux. Firebug runs on Firefox. Ruby also runs on Linux, and Rails runs pretty much anywhere Ruby will. My favorite text editors (Kate and Vim) run on Linux.

    The only irritation is that everyone and their dog seems to have latched onto these TextMate URLs in error messages. These are very cool, but I haven't gotten them working with things other than TextMate yet.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  68. I suspect an inside job by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Little Johnny Tables strikes again.

  69. Seriouly Dangerous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think they secured the sight, I just think they can't detect the intrusion anymore, because it is now hiding in a device driver that correlates to a process and they can't even see it!!! Networkers do not know programming, and programmers do not know Networking, and rarely do the two sides speak!!! The only way to really be sure is to look at the original programming ...you think they will admit they don't know how to do it?? Score one for OLD SCHOOL!!!!

  70. bitdefender, too ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://hackersblog.org/2009/02/09/hackedbitdefender-portugal-exposes-sensitive-customer-data/

  71. What??? by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    And these are the same people claiming great security for my pc, because they know how to handle threats. If they can't even write good web code for their site, my guess is they don't for their products either.