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Hackers Jump On Newest IE7 Bug
CWmike writes "Attackers are already exploiting a bug in Internet Explorer 7 that Microsoft patched just last week, security researchers warned today. Although the attacks are currently in 'very, very small numbers,' they may be just the forerunner of a larger campaign, said Trend Micro's Jamz Yaneza. 'I see this as a proof-of-concept,' said Yaneza, who noted that the exploit's payload is extremely straightforward and explained that there has been no attempt to mask it by, say, planting a root kit on the victimized PC at the same time. 'I wouldn't be surprised to see this [exploit] show up in one of those Chinese exploit kits,' he added. The new attack code, which Trend Micro dubbed 'XML_Dloadr.a,' arrives in a spam message as a malicious file masquerading as a Microsoft Word document."
And then the exploits will occur with the browser that most people are using. Face it: there are bugs in every piece of software out there, and it's just a matter of time before someone finds and exploits them.
The new attack code, which Trend Micro dubbed "XML_Dloadr.a," arrives in a spam message as a malicious file masquerading as a Microsoft Word document. If the fake document is opened, the exploit hijacks PCs that have not been patched...
Running Chrome or Firefox won't stop idiots from opening strange attachments.
That will be true if all those people running windows using administrator accounts move over to running linux as root. Those running linux properly will still be pretty much unaffected.
Not all that much really. Easy enough to run a spambot with user privs. Any of the data you want to steal is in ~. If you last long enough without detection, you can grab the user's password with an X keylogger and start doing extra naughty stuff with root.
"Strangers have the best candy" -Me