Stuxnet Attacks Used 4 Windows Zero-Day Exploits

abadnog writes "The attackers behind the recent Stuxnet worm attack used four different zero-day security vulnerabilities to burrow into — and spread around — Microsoft's Windows operating system, according to a startling disclosure from Microsoft. Two of the four vulnerabilities are still unpatched. Microsoft said the attackers initially targeted the old MS08-067 vulnerability (used in the Conficker attack), a new LNK (Windows Shortcut) flaw to launch exploit code on vulnerable Windows systems and a zero-day bug in the Print Spooler Service that makes it possible for malicious code to be passed to, and then executed on, a remote machine. The malware also exploited two different elevation of privilege holes to gain complete control over the affected system."

Comments

Well, at least

[by (1706743)]

...zero-day bug in the Print Spooler Service...

it won't affect the iPad!

Yeah, yeah, -1 Troll, -1 Flamebait, -1 Offtopic...

Re:Zero Day?

[CannonballHead]

define: zero day
Pertaining to the day on which software is released; New; as yet unpatched

So it sounds like zero day means that it was present in the unpatched version?

That said, the summary says nothing about patched vs. unpatched. There would be a great outcry if a vulnerability in Linux/OSS was exploited, even though that vulnerability was already patched, and the summary failed to mention that the only reason it was exploited was because the system was NOT patched...

Re:Zero Day?

[GrumpySteen]

A zero-day vulnerability is widely recognized to be a vulnerability that is found only because it's being exploited, which is how the four vulnerabilities appear to have been discovered. I suspect that the author of the article reasoned that a zero-day vulnerability remains a zero-day vulnerability even after a patch is available for it.

I don't think there's any guidelines for when, if ever, an exploit stops being called a zero-day vulnerability and becomes just a normal one.

All these vulnerabilities..

[simp]

All these neat day0 exploits wasted to get into an industrial control system. The numbers of those systems are only in the thousands, they could have taken control over millions of normal Windows PCs. Who-ever designed this must have been really determined to get data out of those Siemens controllers. Wouldn't it be easier just to bribe a local operator into getting the info?

Or did they want to create their own bot-net of Scada systems? Then you can brag that you can shutdown a country at the touch of a button.

Re:All these vulnerabilities..

[antifoidulus]

This thing is able to inject code as well. Imagine how much a company could gain if it was able to inject difficult to detect faults in its competitors products. Imagine how many armies around the world would be salivating at the opportunity to, for a few thousand dollars, basically have an opportunity to render their opponents half-billion dollar jet useless. These attacks only work, however, if you are able to fly under the radar. If the authors would have attacked normal PCs the odds of the bug being discovered and fixed would be much greater than if they only target a very small subset of Windows computers.

Re:Zero Day?

[NatasRevol]

No, it can't. The article may use it that way, but it is incorrect.

zero-day means that there is a hack before there is knowledge or, obviously, a fix of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-day_attack

Re:Zero Day?

[NatasRevol]

It stops being called a zero-day vulnerability... once there's a patch out. Just because a patch is or isn't used doesn't change that.