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A Vulnerability in Cortana, Now Patched, Allowed Attacker To Access a Locked Computer, Change Its Password (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the lesson-learned dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for BleepingComputer: Microsoft has patched a vulnerability in the Cortana smart assistant that could have allowed an attacker with access to a locked computer to use the smart assistant and access data on the device, execute malicious code, or even change the PC's password to access the device in its entirety. The issue was discovered by Cedric Cochin, Cyber Security Architect and Senior Principle Engineer at McAfee. Cochin privately reported the problems he discovered to Microsoft in April. The vulnerability is CVE-2018-8140, which Microsoft classified as an elevation of privilege, and patched yesterday during the company's monthly Patch Tuesday security updates. Further reading: Microsoft Explains How it Decides Whether a Vulnerability Will Be Patched Swiftly or Left For a Version Update.

11 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Bounty by SumDog · · Score: 2

    He better have gotten a huge bug bounty for that. Remove code and auth changes via Cortana? That's gotta be worth at least the $10k PornHub paid for their PHP remote code execution (which wasn't even a PornHub bug, but a PHP one; so that company collected the PHP bounty on top of it as well).

  2. So, given the pace of new features in Win10 by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How long before this bug is re-introduced?
    It's continually blows my mind people *voluntarily* use Win10...the track record of show-stopping problems with this OS is well known.

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
    1. Re:So, given the pace of new features in Win10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Most modern software that is used in the business world requires Windows 10. The telepresence and collaboration features are world-class and provide a huge boost to productivity and TTM. We have competitors that struggle along with other solutions and we're constantly celebrating wins over them, on nearly every opportunity.

    2. Re:So, given the pace of new features in Win10 by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The bugs don't bother me - they're inevitable. It's the "features" that are deliberately put into Win 10 which annoy me most. I changed the program associated with several file types to non-Microsoft programs soon after upgrading to Win 10. After last week's patch, instead of launching the program when double-clicking on the associated file type, it popped up the standard "no associated program" dialog and asked if I wouldn't rather want to use the Microsoft product instead of the one I'd selected.

      If I went to the trouble to change the default to a different program, that should be a pretty clear indication that I don't want to use the default Microsoft program. Please stop bugging me about it. This is supposed to be an operating system that I paid for, not an advertising platform. I'm worried we're headed down the same path as Cable TV - where originally you paid for cable so you wouldn't have to watch ads like on broadcast TV. But soon the cable channels figured out they could charge you for the channel AND put ads in their programming.

    3. Re:So, given the pace of new features in Win10 by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Indeed. It is not that MS has gotten even more incompetent. It is that they just do not have what it takes to run a release model like the one of Win10.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:So, given the pace of new features in Win10 by gweihir · · Score: 2

      And then you look at what most Fortune-500 companies actually run internally, and you find it is not Win10. I know, for example, one that finished the migration to Win7 only 2 years ago or so and will not move to Win10 at all. Instead they will move to web-terminals and Servers on RHEL. Win10 is a very bad deal for everybody (including, funnily, MS), and a lot of people are seeing that pretty clearly.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  3. Cortana is like Internet Explorer by xack · · Score: 2

    Far too integrated into the operating system for it's own good.

    1. Re:Cortana is like Internet Explorer by Dwedit · · Score: 2

      Step 1: Open administrator command prompt
      Step 2: Kill Explorer
      Step 3: Kill all the Cortana processes (Explorer automatically restarts them)
      Step 4: Using administrator command prompt, Rename C:\windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_something to have .old at the end so Windows can't start it any more.

      Warning: May possibly break Windows Update? Not sure.

  4. Past tense? by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 2

    "Microsoft has patched a vulnerability in the Cortana smart assistant that ALLOWS an attacker with access to a locked computer to use the smart assistant and access data on the device, execute malicious code, or even change the PC's password to access the device in its entirety."

    The patch was released 1 day ago. This vulnerability still exists for every Cortana-equipped computer that has not yet been updated.

    And how many people refuse to update because updates have a history of breaking things?

  5. Not vulnerable anymore by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 2

    Using Windows 7 again. After the disastrous 1803 update I decided to stop playing beta operating system tester.

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  6. Re:Non-Sequarurrrrrr??? by halivar · · Score: 2

    Welcome to Slashdot. The first post is always something about Donald Trump, "gay n*****s", apping apps for luddites, or, if you are very very lucky, something about Golden Girls and cosmonauts.

    If you are very very unlucky, it's spam about a custom hosts file.