I saw a comment somewhere else that zero-day was overused and in essense ANY previously unknown vulnerability in open source software is technically zero day… the intent here though is to use the word in this context…. “vulnerability has been released without giving the vendor an opportunity to patch…” Yes, the fun vulnerability weekend seems to be continuing – there’s a javascript zdnet has coverage it’s “impossible to patch” (?) from the individuals that have publicized it. The announcement came at Toorcon.
Category: Security
-
Oh and ANOTHER Powerpoint vulnerability too….
Sometimes you feel like the little Dutch boy of myth/legend with his finger trying to plug the hole in a dam…. Incidents bring us this as well…. another powerpoint vulnerability seems to have been disclosed. MS has an advisory. All currently supported Office versions are vulnerable (even on Mac?) Workarounds include not opening powerpoint files… using the Powerpoint viewer 2003 (I don’t see any word on opening in something like Openoffice.org Impress – that MAY mitigate the risk.)
-
Microsoft releases official VML patch!!
The big news this afternoon is that Microsoft HAS gone out of the routine patch cycle to release a security fix for the VML vulnerability that’s been actively exploited in recent days for everything from sneak keylogger installs to massive spyware installs. Sans has a few links, if you de-registered the affected DLL you should consider re-registering the same so that you’ll be able to view/access vml content in the future. Here’s Microsoft’s technet Security Bulletin on the matter. (Visit update.microsoft.com if it’s not automatically downloaded for you.) It should be noted that the RC of IE 7 was not affected by this vulnerability.
-
Update on the Internet Explorer VML vulnerability
Just catching up on the days VML vulnerability news from today…. It looks as though… the exploit is now MUCH more widespread this blog has some video of an infection, what’s notable is that the first take was VERY UNEVENTFUL, it was used to stealthily install a keylogger. (So that they can harvest paypal/bank/etc. passwords…) So, there might not be a big red “you’re owned” sign pop up. Sunbelt reported on a test page to visit to see if you’re vulnerable. The direct link is http://www.isotf.org/zert/testvml.htm (Will crash IE if it’s vulnerable.)
-
Apple Macbook pro and other wireless fixes
Do you remember the big bruhaha a month or so back about the “apple wireless vulnerability” that everybody picked apart because in the video taped demonstration they used a third party card…. EVEN though the demonstrators stated that the same vulnerability existed in Apple’s own driver some on the internet tore one reporter up over stating that because Apple denied being shown exploit code (slight semantic issue there…) Well… those driver vulnerabilities that must have not existed, were fixed today by Apple. Brian Krebs has the story, as well as incidents.org
-
More fake codecs
Sunbelt is still finding fake codec sites…. This most recent site is mpcodec.com and the ip address of 69.50.160.58
(I had to do a doubletake as THIS site (averyjparker.com) is hosted at 69.36.180.58 – I usually see the first and last numbers first and thought – “wait a minute – that looks familiar…” the middle numbers matter too though….)
Beware of audio/video codec downloads that claim they’re the best thing since sliced bread… Here’s another…
-
How Microsoft could patch VML vulnerability before October’s patch day
SO, there’s the second big vulnerability exploit for Internet Explorer making the rounds in about a week and Microsoft’s advisory says that the most recent flaw will likely be patched on October’s patch day (“unless the need arises…”) So, what would trigger that need? Lot’s of browsers being subjected to unwanted drive-by downloads? I suppose that doesn’t trigger need for an out of cycle patch. True, “lot’s” is hard to quantify – how many people are really affected by this, home users? office users? etc. After all there IS a way to mitigate this (unregistering the vml dll….) not for the faint of heart but, it’s your computer and you’re responsible for it, right? Last month, a program offered people the capability of removing DRM from Microsoft DRM protected windows media files… it took about 3 days for Microsoft to release a fix…..
-
Public CWSandbox (es)…
Around the time of this latest IE exploit hitting the web, there was also mention of some publicly available CWSandbox sites for the submission of malware. It’s an analysis tool that can give you a report of how the malware behaves and what it would do if run in a “non-sandboxed” environment. There are a couple up now it seems. One incidents.org reported is https://luigi.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/submit.php, Sunbelt has one at http://research.sunbelt-software.com/submit.aspx and they have alternate URLS….
-
Internet Explorer 0-day (take 2 of the last few days…)
The last zero day (activeX) seems to be less interesting than this NEW zero-day that really made a news splash in the last day. It looks as though this NEW 0-day affects VML… Incidents.org has good coverage here. Microsoft has an advisory up and they expect to release a patch on the next scheduled patch day (earlier if needed…. ahem….) Sunbelt is blogging about the “epic loads of adware” being pushed into systems via this vulnerability. Now, some workarounds….