Slashdot Mirror
New IE Zero Day
RebootKid writes "Microsoft has released a notice about
a new zero day attack against Internet Explorer. Guess it's going to be more a 'Script Kiddie Christmas,' less of a 'White Christmas.' 'Ok, fess up — who asked for an IE 0 day for Christmas? I'm guessing Santa got his lumps of coal mixed up with a bag of exploits. This exploit has been discussed over the last day or so on full disclosure and a number of other sites. Metasploit already has a module available for it (just search for CSS & IE). Microsoft has put out an advisory 2488013 regarding the issue which manifests itself when a specially crafted web page is used and could result in remote code execution on the client.'"
If you felt the story was newsworthy, I have no doubt that it was submitted in a form that was better than this one, or that you could have re-wrote it.
I don't use technology X and therefor nobody else does! LALALALALALA NOT LISTENING
Well the (+1 score) is that they have called for using the “The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit” (EMET) tool to mitigate the problem. The bigger question is why is EMET not a part of the OS proper? If the EMET tool is capable of solving this problem then why the &83$$@# didn't they force an install of EMET to solve all the Adobe issues? Why are they NOT stepping forward to fix all the third party application security issues?
What security features can you add with EMET?
Dynamic Data Execution Prevention (DEP)
Structure Exception Handler Overwrite Protection (SEHOP)
Heap Spray Allocation
Null Page Allocation
Export Address Table Access Filtering
Mandatory Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)
Now I have several questions, like why is this not part of the OS? Why is it not a default where these can be turned off on a case by case basis? Have untrusted browser plugins? And why isn't Flash/acrobat/shockwave forced to run under it? Admittedly Acrobat-X (sandboxed version of Acrobat) is a step in the right direction, but wouldn't it be better to have all applications turned on by default?
The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 2.0 is Now Available
http://tinyurl.com/28znulg
If its not being utilized yet, and the first notice came from MS, it is in no way a 0 day.
The vulnerabilities (there are two by the way) were first disclosed by WooYun.org although metasploit did not add modules until after MS's advisory. I don't know f it was exploited before it became public or not.
3. Attacker installs super good anti-virus software that informs you of the 137 virus you have installed.
4. Super smart victim buys super good anti-virus updates with credit card.
5. Attacker make money, victim get protected. Everybodies win.
And this is noteworthy why?
Because a significant number of people on Slashdot are security geeks and enjoy learning about exploits, or are sysadmins that manage at least some machines where the users can get to IE.
And this is noteworthy why? How many Slashdotters use Internet Explorer for anything other than the occasional WindowsUpdate in XP? This may be News for Nerds, but it hardly matters. Everyone here knows very well that Internet Explorer is too dangerous for general Web use. That Microsoft is suffering yet another security failure doesn't really elicit much interest from me, I must say.
Firstly, a serious security vulnerability in a popular (for whatever reason) software tool is always noteworthy, if just for the fact that it's interesting. Secondly, the overall state of IE is large enough to affect everyone in some way or another. And finally, numerous people here administer systems or have friends and family that may run or require Internet Explorer, and such a bulletin could certainly prove useful to them to prevent this attack from damaging those they (are paid to) care about.
It irks me that there are better options than Explorer readily available, but so many people just don't care enough about their own security and privacy to avail themselves of those options. It's not like paying through the nose for an anti-virus product: these things are free to use! I feel less and less sorry for Explorer users every day, having heard all the excuses ("it doesn't look like Explorer, my favorite free-malware-site doesn't like it, it's too hard to install, I'm too stupid to use a computer, and so on ad infinitum.) It's not as if the likes of Firefox, Chrome and Opera are hard to find, or aren't in the public's eye nowadays. Hell, a few months ago a major U.S. bank issued a warning recommending that its customers eschew Explorer in favor of anything else and further recommended that any online banking be done in anything but Windows (preferably Linux/Unix.) Of course, the month after that they made another public statement to the effect that they would only support Internet Explorer (note: they didn't follow through on that threat. I got the distinct impression that it was a "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" situation.)
I've met smart people who think that Internet Explorer is the Internet. They don't know or care what a browser is. Technology, Internet included, is just another tool, and it needs to work correctly. To tell someone like this to get another browser is not feasible; without a long explanation, they will never like the idea of switching from something that is (or appears to be) working to something different.
Approaching someone and taking the time to explain the situation and answer their questions is the only way to make a transition sit comfortably with them. Unfortunately, people "in-the-know" don't have the time or desire to address the remaining population. The best effort I've seen to address the non-technical public is Google's "get a faster browser" button on their home page, and even then I've heard those who say "well, mine is fast enough". Someone has to explain things and answer their questions.
I've encountered pretty popular attitude that viruses only exist on shady websites (e.g., gambling, and porn) and that caring about or addressing security is not only unnecessary, but also an admission of one's intention to visit such sites. Once again, the only way to break past this is to take the time to sit down, explain things, and answer questions.
Short of prosthelytizing nerd squads going door-to-door, there's not much that can be done. Microsoft got themselves into this biased market mess by aggressively pushing IE and locking out other browsers, and they are wholly responsible for keeping their shit together. Maybe someone should sue them for damages.
Also, keep in mind that serious flaws have been found in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. IE, like Windows, is targeted more heavily than other browsers due to its market share. If IE is ditched en masse, I would bet money on the number of flaws in other browsers growing significantly higher. This doesn't absolve Microsoft (see previous paragraph), but it does suggest that the problem is larger than IE and attitude.
Referece? The CVE description says:
Maybe the majority of slashdotters are on firefox, chrome, opera right now, but the software we're developing may only work on IE. The Network admins will need to deal with their users using IE. And a lot of our relatives are still using IE
When your aunt Bertha calls on christmas and goes "MY INTERNET IS BROKEN", i'll be able to go "ah yea, I remember reading about that on slashdot".
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
Microsoft has released a notice about a new zero day attack against Internet Explorer.
And this is noteworthy why? How many Slashdotters use Internet Explorer for anything other than the occasional WindowsUpdate in XP? This may be News for Nerds, but it hardly matters. Everyone here knows very well that Internet Explorer is too dangerous for general Web use. That Microsoft is suffering yet another security failure doesn't really elicit much interest from me, I must say.
Weeellllll, that's the stereotype, sure, but the on-the-ground reality paints a different picture.
Surely you've noticed that Firefox 3.6 is up to its 13th point release since January,and #14 is just around the corner. The first Secunia security advisory for this browser was issued within weeks of its initial release, and there now have been 11 in total, covering 85 separate vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.6. Look at SA42517 for an example, which was published two weeks ago. In that one advistory alone, 13 different security bugs are addressed, covering a wide variety of attack vectors like large Javascript arrays and large parameters to document.write(). And when you look at the fixes made in source control to patch these bugs, you sometimes scratch your head and wonder, how the fuck did they miss that when coding it?
But the problem with Firefox is worse than that. On Windows and Mac OS X, users are prompted over and over again to install these point updates. It requires elevation to Administrator privileges, and it requires restarting the browser. I see people routinely ignoring these updates because it'd interrupt what they're doing..... and the web server logs I have access to are a mishmash of Firefox browser versions.
This is a browser with 25% of the worldwide marketshare -- more than any version of Internet Explorer save for version 8.
So.... how about Google Chrome, you say? Their patching setup is far superior (that's why I use it), but it's not like the browser is any better-written. Just this month there have already been eighteen disclosed security vulnerabilities. And that's only slightly worse than average for a month in Chrome land. There are actually a number of Google Chrome bugs which are marked as only affecting the Linux version, too. Look at CVE-2010-4041 for an example of what I mean.
What I'm trying to say here is this -- Internet Explorer's security profile isn't significantly different than the other major vendors. They all have poorly-coded browsers that focused on packing the features in, without taking due consideration to the safety of the code they're writing. If you want to single out Microsoft for criticism, let's talk about the fact that they take so long to get these fixes out, and that reboots are often required to get the patches in place. That's where Firefox and especially Chrome are ahead.
I thought that zero day means that somebody uses it in a attack and it appears that it hasn't been known before the said attack. Public Disclosure automatically disqualifies it as zero-day.
Zero-day generally indicates that the attack is in-use (by bad guys) at the time that it becomes known by the vendor and/or the public (e.g., zero days for anyone to take steps to mitigate the damage). This is as opposed to a vulnerability that is only known to the public after it has been addressed by the software maintainer. "Zero-day" can also mean an attack that is still viable at the time of disclosure, though there is less significance in the specific choice of term.
Zero day refers to how much time an administrator has to patch his systems before an exploit is known. Since this is still not patched, it is indeed a zero day exploit, although if the exploit is as yet unused it is not a zero day attack.
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Microsoft got themselves into this biased market mess by aggressively pushing IE and locking out other browsers,
Wha? Since when did Microsoft "lock out" other browsers?
Sorry for the ambiguity; I was referring to locking them out of the browser market via aggressive pushing, default installation in the most popular operating system, IE-only web sites due to standards deviations, inseparable integration with the host operating system, and use of (at the time) Microsoft-only APIs for optimizations, plug-ins, and media capabilities. People always have had a choice, but Microsoft used every bit of their considerable influence and position to make that choice for them, causing an effective "lock out".
I didn't use the term appropriately, and I would retract if it I could; s/locking out/thoroughly defeating/g. My point was that by becoming the dominant product in the market and accepting that role, Microsoft also inherited the responsibility for operating as a major player in securing that market, and they have grossly failed in this role.
Ah, I agree.
The cynical person in me would say that the dominance of IE is at least half of the blame on Mozilla's disastrous decision to re-write Netscape from scratch, resulting in them having literally no way of competing with Microsoft. (It's also telling that IE won against Netscape on the Macintosh, a platform which wasn't subject to the biases you mentioned.)
I mean, if you want Microsoft to write good software, you need to compete with them-- that's just how it works. No competition to Microsoft = no effort from Microsoft.
Comment of the year
When I went to a 64-bit OS I decided I'd force DEP on. Windows actually has 4 DEP modes: always off, always on, opt in, opt out. It just only shows the opt in and opt out choices in the GUI. So I turned it on. After all, this was some time since DEP had come about, figured things would be fine.
Wrong answer. Tons of apps bombed on DEP errors. Seems lots of apps like to execute from memory they forgot to mark for code. I tried the opt out mode for a bit, figuring that I'd just add the apps that were problems, but it got to be too much since you have to do it by hand (there isn't an "add exception" button in the error or anything), some apps had multiple sub apps that had to be added, and of course it isn't like apps would always just fail to execute, sometimes they'd run fine until you were in them and working, then bomb (audio apps with plugins were notorious for this).
So now my computer is in the default op in state, meaning only apps that ask for DEP get it. Not as secure, but such is life. Good news is as far as I can tell all my apps that run at any privilege above user DO use DEP so that's nice.
And you're still a troll. And if you think that simply running Linux automagically protects you from any threat of malware, you're also an idiot.
The quality of discussion on this site is taking a nosedive lately. I think phony "debate" talkshows and the demagoguing occurring in politics does a lot of damage by repeatedly presenting invalid processes as though they were legitimate or useful. I'll spell it out right now, the dishonest tactics used on shows like that and commercials like that are designed for one purpose: so the host or politician can "win" and "be right" no matter how right or wrong he/she actually is. It's rhetoric, not debate.
I'll give a rough outline of how this most often plays out on Slashdot. My goal is to demonstrate how petty and useless it really is:
It boils down to what kind of man or woman you are. To some people, the truth is more important than winning and any winning that does happen is not legitimate if it is not rooted in truth. To many people, winning is more important than the truth and lying, distorting, misrepresenting, are all acceptable as long as you win and the other guy loses. The latter group will never know what it means to say "you know, that's a really good point, it made me think about this differently, you changed my mind about this -- thank you!" for that would mean losing face, or so they imagine.
What does this have to do with the subject at hand? I'll explain. For every 500 times I've seen someone say "if you think Linux automagically protects you from malware", I think I've seen maybe 1 time that anyone actually made that claim. This strawman has been beaten so severely it's reverted back to a small pile of hay. It's time to let it go, no matter how otherwise trollish somebody else has decided to be (and he was -- I don't dispute that, but this BS compounds that problem).
The GP said two things. He said he has run Debian and/or Ubuntu for the last 10 years. That's not absurd or beyond the realm of possibility. So ok, I believe him. He also says he has experienced no malware during those 10 years. That's strictly a matter of his competence as a Linux admin, skilled admins exist, and it doesn't take a particularly high level of skill to achieve that. So that's not absurd or infeasible either. Ok, I believe him on that one too.
Now hear this: he did not claim that Linux automagically did anything. I realize some people have said that -- if you want to do something about it, locate and deal with those people. What you're doing is assuming he must be just like them because he wears the same kind of tie. Until and unless he makes the same claims, he is not just like them. If he trolled a little, you said "oh yeah, watch THIS" and showed him how it's done.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Put the chair down, Steve.
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I don't know about him, but I sure am jealous of not having an OS that will only run a tiny library of poorly written, half-assed software
*shrug*
I don't usually reply to trolls but...
Mind you that people writing open-source code do it for fun and recognition. Writing "half-assed" code seems something that a paid employee could do since they have deadlines to meet and other more important objectives to worry about than writing "clean-code". Also, the very nature of *open*-source code makes it more vulnerable to third party quality checks and peering.
If you never tried to push code into kernel.org, gnome, kde or any other big opensource project, I suggest you do so you can recognize that is not that easy to push "half-assed" code.
and having pathetic hardware support.
Sure. That's why Linux is found in the TOP 100 super computers, in fridges, high-end TVs, cellphones, routers and of course.. desktops
Talking about desktops .. don't expect Linux to run 100% if you throw it into some random combination of hardware without *checking compatibility first*. Because you can do the same and grab Microsoft Windows, for example, and throw it into non Microsoft certified hardware and you will see how well it will run.
Oh well, I'll just have to stick with Windows and continue to be able to use all PC hardware on the market and have the biggest and best selection of software at my fingertips.
Your comments are childish and obviously pathetic. Worse is that you have knowledge of it by replying as AC..
No, you haven't.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Or have a relative who is guaranteed to get all the latest malware, and will have to remove it while home for the holidays.
Any ideas on how I can get out of it this year?
Windows 98 was fourteen times the operating system that Windows 7 is.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC