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Internet Explorer 0-day Attacks On US Nuke Workers Hit 9 Other Sites

SternisheFan writes with an excerpt from Ars Technica: "Attacks exploiting a previously unknown and currently unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser have spread to at least nine other websites, including those run by a big European company operating in the aerospace, defense, and security industries as well as non-profit groups and institutes, security researchers said. The revelation, from a blog post published Sunday by security firm AlienVault, means an attack campaign that surreptitiously installed malware on the computers of federal government workers involved in nuclear weapons research was broader and more ambitious than previously thought. Earlier reports identified only a website belonging to the US Department of Labor as redirecting to servers that exploited the zero-day remote-code vulnerability in IE version 8. ... 'The specific Department of Labor website that was compromised provides information on a compensation program for energy workers who were exposed to uranium,' CrowdStrike said. 'Likely targets of interest for this site include energy-related US government entities, energy companies, and possibly companies in the extractive sector. Based on the other compromised sites other targeted entities are likely to include those interested in labor, international health and political issues, as well as entities in the defense sector.'"

5 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Hold Microsoft Responsible by Murdoch5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I make a medical device that has a serious software bug and goes awall and kills people I'm held responsible. If I start a company who dumps oil into the ocean by accident and it kills people / animals I'm held responsible. So shouldn't company's who release buggy software be held responsible for damages and compensation?

    1. Re:Hold Microsoft Responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. This was not gross negligence. This was not a bug that would affect anyone under conditions remotely close to normal. This is something that is being actively exploited by someone (the criminal in this case) in a way never intended by the programmers. It'd be like suing the people who made the bullets used in the Sandy Hook massacre. Not only that, they probably agreed when they installed the software not to hold the software company responsible for anything. The way the system works, if Microsoft does this enough and demonstrates that they cannot create secure products, the market (cue angel choir) will punish them.

    2. Re:Hold Microsoft Responsible by Onymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, that's the problem with a truly free market. Consumers are stupid and inattentive, corporations are clever and evasive.

      If every consumer were Ralph Nader I'd be a free market zealot. As that's not the case we have to find a different way to assure corporations behave themselves.

    3. Re:Hold Microsoft Responsible by Cenan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly this.
      Some of us are stuck with legacy systems, built with legacy tools and the original developers are long, long gone. While we try to unwind the horrible spaghetti mess that is our core business software, we have to make due with Win-XP VMs and all sorts of neat tricks to keep the rickety shit from collapsing in on itself.

      (Incidently, if any of you reading this worked at Borland/Inprise in the late nineties: hello how ar... FUCK YOU! and fuck your ridiculous fucking desktop database fucking crap. You fucking morons have no fucking clue how to nail a board onto another board, and you should all be lined up and punched in the dick. /rant)

      --
      ... whatever ...
    4. Re:Hold Microsoft Responsible by Murdoch5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is why open source is the best software model on the market! You find a bug and you know how to fix it, go ahead, if you can't fix it but submit a bug report your almost always guaranteed another programmer can fix it. If your company adapts a closed software model then you should offer the same level of support as open source, meaning if someone finds a bug the company offers a fix. The lifetime of the software shouldn't matter, a bug today is a bug in 30 years and should be treated the same way. Yes most people will upgrade but for the few that have no need they should still get support.