So, the stories are out of the analysis of the code for Mozilla Firefox. It seems there were a large number of potential flaws found (71 potential security vulnerabilities) according to the article. This was done using an automated tool and many say, that in order to evaluate the true severity of the flaws, you have to be familiar with the code. Some, I’m sure will pounce on this with the “I thought open source software was supposed to be more secure…. I’m going back…” but it’s time to stop and think about things a moment. Open Source software…. anyone can access the source, anyone can analyze it for problems, anyone can run an automated tool to test it…..
Category: Security-Vulnerabilities
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System patching 0-days and ancient-day vulnerabilities
There’s a good article at Michael Sutton’s Blog which points out something that really makes sense and I think many people are aware of, but with all the buzz that a new previously undisclosed vulnerability has, we forget. The point is this, there are plenty of machines online vulnerable to ancient flaws that have been known (in some cases for years.) In his article, he does a search for one specific vulnerability and finds targets. Some of the comments speculate that some may be honeypots, but I would doubt that a high percentage are and suspect that most are the real deal.
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Another Internet Explorer Exploit (September 2006)
A new Internet Explorer bug was published on Monday. It’s been given a CVE (2006-4446) and affects IE 6.0 SP1. It’s worth considering alternative browsers. Details from bugtraq indicate that it’s a buffer overflow in the DirectAnimation.PathControl COM Object(daxctle.ocx)… could cause DoS and possibly remote code execution.
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Sun java update process vulnerable
The Java Runtime Environment from Sun has a vulnerability that’s due in large part to a poor approach to updating it. IF you have not uninstalled previous versions of the JRE on your PC, they are likely still there EVEN after an update AND to make things even worse, a specially designed website could specifiy the version of the JRE to use in dealing with java components on the page. Sun’s advisory here on the issue. The story is from the SecurityFix and I’m bothered by the same point that get’s Brian about this update….
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Sendmail DoS vulnerability
I’ve got to admit, I hadn’t caught the notice of this until it was at incidents.org. I don’t currently administer sendmail on any machines, but…. Sendmail released version 8.13.8 on August 9th to address several issues (including a DoS vulnerability). It was possible for a specially crafted email to trigger the problem.
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Wireshark, various vulnerabilities disclosed
There used to be a tool called ethereal and then it changed it’s name to wireshark. Today a number of security vulnerabilities were disclosed. A new version is available and workarounds. Please upgrade if at all possible.
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More Microsoft Patch problems MS06-042
This has been one of the “problem child” patches this time around and it looks as though it’s worse than initially thought. Apparently, instead of “just” crashing IE SP1 when viewing compressed http 1.1 web pages on WinXP SP1 or Windows 2000 SP4…. as stated in Microsoft’s bulletins, this could also lead to a buffer overflow allowing for code execution. Microsoft is saying that they are not aware of that vulnerability being exploited or impacting customers at this time. The issue that was originally reported is detailed in this knowledge base article.
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Powerpoint vulnerability (August 2006)
I’m having to make sure I put the date in the title of these posts now…. over the weekend there were rumors of a new powerpoint vulnerability. Sans had an early notice of some trojan droppers using powerpoint files. And by the 20th (Sunday) it was being called a 0-day. There is a good FAQ over at securiteam.com.
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Mac Wireless driver Security vulnerability revisited
A couple weeks ago the hot story was about the demonstration of a vulnerability in a 3rd party wireless card driver on a Mac. The individuals that demonstrated the vulnerability (in a video taped presentation) also claimed that many wireless drivers were vulnerable to this same flaw and it included the MacBook native drivers (among others.) There was immediate controversy over the fact it was a video demo. I thought their explanation for that was reasonable. (They didn’t want to give a room full of crackers a chance to sniff the wireless traffic and get TOO much detail on the exploit before vendors had a good chance to give updates.) Well… at this point it sounds like among other things, they have not yet demonstrated to Apple an effective use of this exploit against the wireless drivers on the macbook.
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Other MS patch news as well as a Yahoo vulnerability?
Or lack of currently available patch as the case may be. From the previous link it appears that there was at least one previously announced vulnerability that was not addressed in the recent patch day from Microsoft. From MS…
“this is a DoS only issue that was not addressed in MS06-040, but will be addressed in a bulletin.”
Not timeline yet on when… There are also public exploits out for (possibly related to MS06-046) which is related to the MS Help system.