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Malware Authors Seem Intent on Weaponizing Windows SettingContent-ms Files (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Malware authors are frantically trying to weaponize a new infection vector that was revealed at the start of June. The trick relies on using Windows Settings (.SettingContent-ms) shortcut files in order to achieve code execution on Windows 10 PCs. Ever since SpecterOps security researcher Matt Nelson published his research on the matter three weeks ago, malware authors have been playing around with proof-of-concept code in attempts of crafting an exploit that can deploy weaponized malware on a victim's system. With each passing day, more and more exploits are being uploaded on VirusTotal.
Good description of the .SettingContent-ms exploit - I would have thought that this would jump out to a Malware author as soon as the feature was announced (regardless of the fact that there is ASR used by large network sysadmins).
Doesn't Microsoft have a bunch of people on staff that think like black hats (probably because they used to be them) with the task of looking for problems like this? At the very least shouldn't somebody have twigged onto the idea that providing a new way to allow new programs to run (as well as spawn new processes) be something that Microsoft security should review?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Berkeley is now at the heart of destroying the free speech and freedom of assembly and association. It is a truly stunning turnabout from freedom to totalitarianism.
FreeBSD and its relatives have institutionalized a thought police. If you don't agree with their manifesto of leftist SJW taking points you will be kicked out. You won't even get email support. Some of the infractions are disagreeing with open borders, voting for Donald Trump, questioning global warming, believing that marriage is a tradition defining the relationship between man and a woman. The FreeBSD manifesto is chilling, shocking, and unimaginable. It is no fucking wonder that FreeBSD is deep in the shitter. If they spent half as much time addressing bugs and features as they do SJW stuff, then they might not be scraping rock bottom.
In case this is news to you and you're wondering about this vulnerability, here's a description. .SettingContent-ms) to link to settings pages. In this format a <DeepLink> tag contains the application to run in order to display the settings page. So like program information files (.pif), shortcuts (.lnk), batch files (.bat) and so on these should be treated as executable programs, because these files can do anything the author wishes. Just specify "%WINDIR%\System32\cmd.exe /c ..." as the command line.
Microsoft has introduced a new file format (extension:
But apparently Microsoft itself didn't appropriately mark the new shortcut file type as executable and because it's a new file type, third-party vendors of things like anti-virus software, web browsers and e-mail clients haven't caught up yet either.
All those wankers claiming Win10 is inherently safer than Win7 because it is "new" and "supported".
Fucking idiots the lot of them.
Just try to imagine all of the new code in Win10 and the as-yet undiscovered exploits, just like this one.
Code gets stronger/better/safer over time, which is almost the exact opposite of physical goods.