Yesterday, when I was testing the WMF exploit against a Windows 98 virtual machine, I sent samples through virus total and the only antivirus product to detect each of them was “TheHacker” from hacksoft. This evening I was revisiting the exploit (with the new rule for metasploit) and saved 20 samples which I also tested with virustotal. The results this evening are better. This evening 4 antivirus products detected each one.
Category: Security
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More testing on the second WMF exploit
After my Windows 98 tests which failed to exploit the system with either the first or the second vulnerability, I started wondering how well the antivirus companies were doing in detecting this second exploit variation. I had setup and updated metasploit so I could test my Windows 98 SE install against the latest version of the exploit and with each connection to the locally hosted page I got a new random file. After I collected five of these I ran them through virustotal.com to see how well detection has come in just 24 hours.
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Version 2 of the WMF exploit vs Windows 98 SE
Ok, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the results of the tests against the first version of the WMF (Windows Metafile) zero day exploit that’s now up to 4 or 5 days or so… Windows 98 is listed as being vulnerable, but there are no patches or workarounds currently available for Windows 98 users. I was mostly curious to see if current exploits could wreck a Windows 98 system. The answer at this point is not that I can see.
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More WMF exploit testing on Windows 98
I’ve spent some more effort on trying to infect Windows 98 SE in a virtual machine with some of the exploit samples I can find. The first attempt was at a website with the .wmf download. No luck infecting the system there. Then, I’ve loaded up the image and visited kyeu dot info/WMF/ and tried each of the files there. I don’t have a zip handler in my Windows 98 SE image so that didn’t get tested, but I’m getting nowhere here. Gif opens with Explorer and gives a red x to indicate a broken image, the text file opens as a binary file viewed in a text editor, the htm file does the same only in explorer (I see what I’d usually see if I tried to open a binary file in a web browser…) The avi opens with Media Player and complains about it being an incompatible format.
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WMF exploit and Windows 98
Most of the talk on the WMF zero-day has centered on Windows XP, 2000 and 2003. The unofficial patch is available for those three platforms. Microsoft’s (eventual) patch will likely be for those as well. Incidents.org had a comment in one of their posts that this would be a “watershed moment” for Windows 98/ME and that those users should upgrade immediately as there is little/no hope for a patch.
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WMF vulnerability checker
The same person that has given the New Year’s gift of an unofficial patch for the WMF exploit circulating has also provided a WMF vulnerability checker, download and install, it will tell if you’re vulnerable. Post is available here. According to the first comment it seems as though the vulnerability checker is triggering Norton’s auto-protect. (Norton detects it as “Bloodhound.Exploit.56”). (Which is a good sign…)
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Network Security guide for the home or small business network – intermission…
At this point I’ve exhausted all the topics on network and computer security that I was eager to cover. As things change/ ideas strike I may well add to this series. One direction I see it going is talking in detail about several network utilities and more advanced topics like looking into web site ownership, email header analysis, good topical books/etc.
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WMF exploit situation summary…
Since there’s been quite a bit of flux the last couple of days I thought I’d try to “reset” the situation and give a general overview of where we stand now with regards to the recent WMF zero-day exploit.
1st there is a vulnerability in the way Windows renders WMF (Windows MetaFile) image files that makes possible an exploitable buffer overflow allowing remote execution. There are at least two exploits for this vulnerability and it is not necessary for the wmf to have a name ending in .wmf (it could masquerade as jpg for instance.) The specially crafted WMF could be in a web page, email (html email), or other document. There are many possible vectors of entry for this.
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WMF Exploit — it’s worse…
This is going to be a rough start to the new year for IT staff and computer users….
There’s coverage at Incidents.org, the sunbeltblog and f-secure of the latest twist in what will likely be a BIG mess to clean up. It looks like there’s a someone spamming emails to tons of addresses with a specially crafted image (uses the WMF exploit.) It’s also a slightly different variant of the exploit.
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Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 20 heterogeneous networks
One thing I’ve already mentioned in this serious is using alternative programs like Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, or Thunderbird, Eduora instead of Outlook Express. Even if you’re not using alternative software as your primary web browser, email program there are advantages to having networks with mixed software, operating systems and even mixed network hardware. Back when the blaster worm hit, there were stories of businesses paralyzed when every Windows XP machine in the place (read – EVERY machine in the place) could not stay up long enough to download a fix. In order to get a fix they had to get online to find out about it and it was crashing within 30 seconds of booting.