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Instant Messaging Vulnerable To New Smiley Attacks
titus writes "Security researchers Yoann Guillot and Julien Tinnes have found a way to encode malicious code into smileys and provided a proof of concept encoder to automate the process. The researchers said their discovery paves the way for IM malware that would be impossible to detect since the malicious code would be 'indistinguishable from genuine chat messages.' I've tested the proof of concept code which works very well. Time to panic?"
Uh-oh, I knew all those 14 year old girls were really 1337 ha>0rz...
And that! :-) (-:
Palm trees and 8
Smiles are contagious.
Dual Opteron < $600
Yeah, opening for Kathy Griffin.
April Fools Day is always a great opportunity to see that computer nerd humor is every bit as good as computer nerd social skills and personal hygiene.
Brett
As I understand it, there is already a variant out undetectable to anti-smiley software as it embeds itself in a frowny-face.
I wonder if it's transmittable on a discussion board as well? :(
Ack! Now I'm :-) infected. How could :-) you go posting :-) such a virulent :-) virus where :-) everyone could see i:-)t? I thin:-)k th:-)e inf:-)ect:-)ion's g:-)et:-)tin:-)g wo:-)rs:-)e n:-)o:-)w. I:-)'m of:-)f t:-)o pa:-)t:-)ch:-) m:-)y s:-)ys:-)te:-)m. :-):-):-):-):-)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I've always thought that it would be far more fun to get into someone's system (actually, lots of people's systems) and replace the smiley images. You send :) and, instead of getting a smiley face, they see an image that contains a sexually explicit proposition in the default MSN font. Imagine the chaos.
Fortunately for the world, I can't write viruses. :D
8===D
It always leads to trouble.
Not the ugly one, that's for sure, otherwise you find yourself handcuffed to a bed with a hangover.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Flamebait??? He's spot on. Mod him "goddamn right!"
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
"computer nerd... every bit"
har har
Mark my word. Next year, this day, there'll be a slashdot front page story...about security risk in using to text based emoticons.
And people will spend the year working on the exploit.
http://xkcd.com/380/
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Ah, the Smiley of Death! Long time no see.
Yes, I have seen people reboot their PC because of him, tho I tend to use the less virulent :(){:|:};: on the innocent, as it gives them a sporting chance of stopping it...
But who's innocent these days? MWUAHAHA! :(){:|:&:}:&: !!!
:O
Slashdot vulnerable to lame April Fools' jokes! Cease using immediately for at least 24 hours.
This message brought to you by the Association of Simpleminded Slashdot Humor Adversion Team
ARE you STUPID or waht?
DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY ?
do you even HAVS A BRAIN ?
Why don't you just stop posting here right now like forever and evr ?
Regardless of it being a harmless April fools joke, Symantec is probably all ready working on a "Smiley Face Blocker".... And people will buy it...
^_^
Nothing wrong with my penis. What you talkin about Willis?
Don't worry about your data, be :)
You can use a good programming editor when posting, something with syntax highlighting and parensbcwsmilies matching to keep your smilies properly balanced.
I guess the way the infection works is you put so many smilies to make the message look like some sort of lisp code. The IM software gets confused, starts a lisp interpreter to make some sense of it, the unbalanced parenthesis cause a buffer overflow in the parser, ...
AccountKiller
This is not a hoax, this is real you guys... I'm cereal!
Bow before me, for I am root.
that wasn't fun at all. I had to restart my computer. I specifically got ubuntu windows instead of microsoft because of this kind of crap!
:(){ :|:& };:
YAY!