FBI, Pentagon Talk to MS about XP Hole 405
(eternal_software) writes: "The Associated Press is reporting that the FBI and Defense Department are talking to Microsoft about the serious flaws found in the XP operating system. As we all know, the most recent flaw allowed any XP machine to be hijacked simply by connecting it to the internet. The government is getting involved because of growing U.S. concerns about risks to the 'net as a whole." In fact, the FBI would like you to go a bit beyond the MS patch. davecl points out the updated page put out by the National Infrastructure Protection Center about this vulnerability as well.
Just a thought (Score:4, Interesting)
now we see the Gov't take a special interest in
the latest XP hole.
Dont know about you, but I am really dont know what to think?
Re:Just a thought (Score:2)
I'm sure it's just coincidence. The more likely reason is due to the hightened state of security, the FBI is less tolerant of MS's sloppy security holes.
Re:Just a thought/Microsoft a target? (Score:5, Interesting)
- It's American, and a symbol of American characteristics such as innovation, which is in itself hated by reactionaries.
- It's extremely visible.
- Its market dominance could be perceived as "imperialist" or culturally imperialist by people who think like that.
- It's a center of wealth and therefore, in puritanical minds, of evil decadence.
- It could be thought of as a "vital organ" of the American economy by someone who doesn't realize how decentralized the American economy is.
Arguing against an attack on Microsoft is the idea that it's causing enough trouble for the US by itself, but this concept is probably beyond the reach of most fanatics.
Re:Just a thought/Microsoft a target? (Score:3, Informative)
How about the biggest reasons:
Re:Just a thought/Microsoft a target? (Score:2)
I wouldn't expect that level of imagination from people who name themselves after Star Wars characters. ;-D
NTFS Journaling (Score:3, Informative)
My understanding is that NTFS' journaling was rudimentary at best. It hasn't been until its recent incarnation (introduced with Win2k) that its managed anything close to a true journaling file system.
Re:Just a thought/Microsoft a target? (Score:2)
Re:Symbol of innovation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Microsoft does occasionally innovate. Having to click twice on a menu entry in the menu bar to get all the options is an innovation! It's a lousy one, but still...
The real problem with MS is, as you said, their Real Innovations:Advertised Innovations ratio. It's pretty low. It's not that they're not creative, they're just not as creative as they say they are. If a person acted like that, you'd call them "full of themselves". You probably wonldn't like them very much either
Nonsense (Score:3, Funny)
OT/Funny McAfee Story (Score:2)
Anyone else got to see the demo version of McAfee ActiveShield installed on new HP systems? One of my friends called me over one day because he said his antivirus had found a virus on his computer. I told him just to hir repair and if that didn't work, hit delete, then he told me there were no repair or delete buttons.
When I went to look at the problem, I saw ActiveShield had popped up a dialog, "McAfee ActuiveShield has detected an infection in this file somefile.mp3.vbs VBS/Love Letter." With a button that took you to the McAfee website where you could remove this virus using McAfee online for "only 39.95." After getting him NAV, we found that it had infected every eligible file on the system (about 23,000), and LoveLetter of course overwrites the original files.
I found his restore disks and went back to my Power Mac.
Re:Just a thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a thought (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that AOL can afford to stuff the mailboxes of the entire US with CD's, Microsoft ought to be able to afford a replacement CD for their paying customers. Instead, they expect you to risk further compromise by going online to get a patch.
They wouldn't even admit that there was a problem until the Washington Post held their feet to the fire. Must be nice to know Uncle Bill cares about his customers
Re:Just a thought (Score:2)
A witness says that Al-Queda deliberately set out to leave back doors and security holes in XP.
XP then has the worst hole of any Microsoft OS, ever.
The FBI suddenly has a lot of questions. They damn well should.
hmmm...interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
XP patch is broken (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the computer is really safe now.
did anybody notice this.... (Score:3, Interesting)
thats really messed up that and scary
(Hmmm.. magic latern)
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's my humble opinion, which isn't as scary or so scary or whatever...
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:4, Funny)
Nevermind that such an exploit could also be used to do just the same thing and send people off to download a "patch" form a psuedo MS site.
Suddenly people are taking seriously the idea that MS can present a problem for national security, when this was dismissed as a trollish comment before.
The fantasy is the unlikely end result with Bill Gates and buddies being arrested for treason for the software. yes it is just a fantasy. ,p.But isn't Xmas the time of year for dreams? ;)
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably not as easily done as it appears on the surface. I suspect (though I could be wrong) that there would be some kind of key-signing of the update patch that's done by MS and then checked by XP before installing the same.
Or maybe not. This is, after all, Microsoft. But still, it seems an obvious precaution to me.
faking out the XP user (Score:2)
I am sure that someone could human engineer the error messages. and since they would actually never go to MS, but maybe to some Bogus Site, like Microsoft-security.com some folks could be fooled by this. I am thinking of the Pay-Pal Scam [arstechnica.com] that was running around a few days back, using simple email. It wouldn't be that hard for people who were expert to fudge something to send a user to La la land, with appropriate dialogs, disclaimers, etc. etc.
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:2)
Yeah, scary like apt-get.
Then again, at least MS patches are signed, which makes things not quite so easy to trojan [securityfocus.com]. (Yeah, signatures aren't everything [counterpane.com], I know.) Unless, of course, you don't trust MS not to trojan their software, in which case why are you running it?
Auto-update systems are good, so long as they prompt the user, which it appears XP's does.
Re:did anybody notice this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever you log in on your XP system (of course, no password in XP-home at least) a flurry of packets fly off to Mord- er Microsoft and to the OEM you bought the system from. You have no way of knowing the content of that communication. Since it's all closed source,no one can comb through it for vulnerabilities or trojans like they could for the code for apt or rpmfind. A typical user has no way of knowing that the communication is even taking place at all unless they are running something like tcpdump on the network.
Does that help?
Basically, when you buy XP you are wittingly or unwittingly complicit in your own surveillance. You have given your consent in principle, to be spied upon because you were sipping your morning coffee while XP talked to the higher authorities about you. You looked away and sipped instead of yanking the cat5 out. I say in principle because we've seen that all the consent required for this government to violate your Constitutional rights is that you and others do not resist it with force. Though no one posting here can say for certain what passes through this security hole now, neither can anyone deny that, with a hole like this opened in your systems, a hole which everyone is being conditioned to accept as normal, a feature of their OS, there is literally NO LIMIT to the severity of your insecurity. While you're sipping that coffee, the convenient updater can convert your computer system into a telescreen into your private thoughts, business plans, governmental policies, and so on without end, no matter where you live and what flag you salute. It used to be that spyware was an annoyance foisted on the public sporadically by marketers. Now with XP, spyware connects a government approved monopoly to your most trusted communications and private papers. You don't have to be an anticapitalist socialist or a government hating libertarian to understand that at some level the distinction between a government approved monopoly and an agency of that government is essentially null, or so small it's not worth discussing. (Or maybe someome could point out examples to me where ATT told the government it would not cooperate in its counterintelligence efforts against antiwar protestors and civil rights leaders in the 1960's)
Between the 2 of them, Windows XP users have poor Goatse-man beat by a painful mile for the infinite elasticity of their holes. I have no doubt that the Feebs and Dept.of Deathdance have a million things they'd like to talk over with MS in that regard.
But they don't see MS as the problem, I bet (Score:2)
How much you want to bet that no one sees this as a problem with Microsoft? One can only hope this emboldens the anti-trust crusaders and their cause.
Trust us! (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has known for five weeks that XP had a serious security hole. They didn't do anything to warn customers who bought XP during that time. They just kept telling how XP is so secure.
It's unbeliavable what Microsoft can get away with. I don't think the hole and the patch are the important issues here. I'm shocked how Microsoft can lie to the whole world for five weeks and people still trust them.
Microsoft should have withdrawn XP and fixed it. Expecially as they don't even have any serious competitors. What they showed was that they don't care about the safety of their customers. They just want to make money no matter what.
Re:Trust us! (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion they should _STILL_ withdraw it and fix it.
By this, I mean that they should recall every vulnerable CD off of shelves, and send everyone who they know has bought one a new copy that is already patched.
Computers bought with Windows XP preinstalled should have the offer of being recalled to have the patch applied, and everyone should be sent an updated recovery disk.
Why? Because otherwise, 90% of computers out there, run by the technologically clueless population will never get this patch applied.
Re:Trust us! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes they will. Thats what the auto updater is for. It downloads the patch in background while the technologically clueless user is browsing, then prompts them to install it by asking them "We send you this update in order to have your advice".
You can guess what the standard response will be.
Re:Trust us! (Score:2, Interesting)
If I recall, on average I was getting one attack every fifteen minutes from Code Red. So how long does this patch take to download? Especially since it's happening in the background, I guess that means it takes a lower priority over a users normal browsing.
Re:Trust us! (Score:2, Informative)
net stop ssdpsrv
net stop upnphost
You really think that'll work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trust us! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trust us! (Score:2, Insightful)
Does it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Trust us! (Score:5, Insightful)
But I feel there MUST be some preannouncement on such bugs, even if the details are minimal. Whenever you work on something, you cannot expect that someone else in the world is not also working on the same thing, but not for the same purposes. In the case here, eEye, the group that found the bug, was looking for it for purposes of good, but I would not expect that someone else, maybe a malicious group, was also narrowing in on the bug 5 weeks ago when eEye reported it to MS. (And then you have to add cyber-espionge that might have garnered that info for themselves?). In the 5 weeks it took MS to verify the bug and develop and test the patch, that other group might have caught up and started 'owning' boxes already. A preannouncement of the bug, simply outlining the effects, and any short-term security measures, would have prevented that group from having any significant harm on the boxes if they did exist.
I know from a previous discussion that many sysadmins, when a new bug is discovered, want to know all the details up front so they can test the bug before and after fixing on their systems. This is understandable, but I think in the cases of bugs that can affect a significant large number of systems, such as this XP bug, that limited disclousure is better. I think a key step that could be done is institute a small group of trusted security people; bugs that are found are reported to the vendor and to this group. A person(s) from the group verifies the bug and puts out a digitalled signed statement that this bug exists, and that certain steps can be taken to correct it. Because of the status of these people, if they claim to have verified the fix, then that should be considered to be truthful, and thus limiting the need of sysadmins having to have full details to test it themselves. After a short period (no more than 6 weeks), the full details should be released, regardless if a patch from the vendor was available or not. That way, the limited disclosure lets the sysadmins know there's something going on and there's step they can take to prevent problems, and it gives the vendor time to fix the problem before that information falls into the hands of malicious people.
Re:Trust us! (Score:2)
All of the links I've followed was a little light on details, which leads me to believe this vulnerability is pretty low level in the kernal stuff. Patches to fundemental kernal services can have far reaching side-effects, in short a patched WindowsXP would be basicaly a new OS compaired to an unpatched Machine; and all existing security testing is out-the window and you start from scratch.
I think that they should be forced to burn a CD and mass mail them to consumers/ and display them at software outlets. It should contain there precious patches, and tutorials on computer security starting at newbee level. Gee how would have thought that the ease-of-usage features of M$ software might lead to security vulnerabilites.
Re:Trust us! (Score:3, Funny)
People won (Score:2, Funny)
I think the full implications of what MS has allowed to happen is going to felt more and more as real users suddenly understand that MS basically does not care about its users.
Look at
Serious Stuff (Score:2, Informative)
Especially all the unaware homeusers like my landlord for example. For systemadmins it already difficult to keep up to date with all the patches even with the various *update programs, at least they are firewalled
And yet they (the homeusers) are the most vulnerable!
And Microsoft proclaimed this was its most secure OS ever.
Follow the EEC Lead. (Score:3, Offtopic)
What the makers of Linux distributions must do is concentrate on usability (and by extension consistency) and further refining their installers so that anyone off of the street can choose and then run Linux as painlessly as they have done with all the different windoze generations.
Ximian are the closest to making easy to use tools that even my Aunt Grace (70) can use. A fully blown distribution from Ximian would be "most welcome" to use parliamentary language.
Re:Follow the EEC Lead. (Score:2)
Re:Follow the EEC Lead. (Score:2, Troll)
Be sure to seperate "ease of use" from "ease of learning"
I *will*, however, comment about installations. You're on drugs. It's that simple
How is That a TROLL? (Score:2)
Linux® on the other hand demands much more standards compliance and relies less on "drivers" to provide translation layers and introduction of security and or performance problems.
And I agree, I just did a WindowME® install a few months ago, on a freshly formated hard-drive SuSE has blown Windows out of the water for a couple years on ease of install, auto-detected hardware not to mention ease of use. I do disagre with modern Linux desktops being hard to learn, for the same functionality as windows its about the same or easier to learn, but you can do alot more on the desktop in *nix than windows. (I like the way jaws drop when I change screen resolutions, and jump back and forth between six different screens and have twenty differnt apps running at the same time, from windows users.)
Microsoft's in trouble . . . (Score:2, Funny)
~~~
all rightey then! (Score:4, Interesting)
I must be living under a rock because this is the first I've heard of this. XP just starts downloading files without any action from the user? Does anyone beside me feel uncomfortable about that?
Re:all rightey then! (Score:2, Informative)
1) download updates automatically and ask the user whether to install them
2) notify the user automatically that updates are available and ask them whether to download and install them
3) none of this
Re:all rightey then! (Score:2)
Re:all rightey then! (Score:2)
Re:all rightey then! (Score:2)
the arrogance (Score:4, Insightful)
I honestly and truly hope that the US government brings them to their knees about this. That's wishful thinking, I know. However, two statements in particular in the Yahoo! article surprised me:
1. Microsoft declined to tell U.S. officials Friday how many consumers downloaded and installed its fix during the first 24 hours it was available.
2. Microsoft also indicated it would not send e-mail reminders to Windows XP customers to remind them of the importance of installing the patch.
The reasons for point 1 are quite clear though. Acting on point 1 would indicate what a fiction the sales figures for XP really are.
Point 2 is more difficult to fathom... perhaps they're hoping people won't notice? Why on earth, other than their disdain for non-corporate users, wouldn't they send out the reminder? Or even a reminder stressing the improtance of installing the auto-updater?
Re:the arrogance (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons for point 1 are quite clear though. Acting on point 1 would indicate what a fiction the sales figures for XP really are.
Point 2 is more difficult to fathom... perhaps they're hoping people won't notice? Why on earth, other than their disdain for non-corporate users, wouldn't they send out the reminder? Or even a reminder stressing the improtance of installing the auto-updater?
Re:the arrogance (Score:2)
>The reasons for point 1 are quite clear though. Acting on point 1 would indicate what a fiction the sales figures for XP really are.
Funny, my first reaction was "they won't tell how many ACTUALLY downloaded the patch versus the number of sales" That way they wouldn't have to tell the fbi that after 24 hours only "5%" (fictionnal number) were patched, this goes without saying that it would make their fast "security"-patching model look terribly bad in practice (even if good on paper).
Careful what you wish for (Score:2)
Ford/Firestone - make the effort (Score:2)
MAKE THE EFFORT. If people aren't registered with a valid email (and check it occasionally) that's their problem.
Huh? (Score:2)
Another risk, that hackers can implant rogue software on vulnerable computers, was conidered more remote because of the technical sophistication needed.
Now IANASK (script kiddie), but isn't implanting "rogue software" a critical step in getting a DDOS up and running? It'd be nice if tech journalists knew a little about what they're reporting, especially the ones who get their paychecks from MS. On the other hand, it'd be nicer if coders knew a little more about what they're doing- especially the ones who get their paychecks from MS.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
The only "hard" part would be tagging a bunch of XP machines on cable or better to be used for the attack.
This should scare you.
High skill level black-hat types getting system access on all machines running XP worldwide shouldn't scare you quite as much, but that is also THEORETICALLY possible through this hole.
National/International Security Concerns (Score:5, Informative)
After all the blather and FUD from Redmond, they again pushed a product out the door with great media hype which is again unsecure. It would be so ironic if Microsoft were punished for this kind of negligence after getting a slap on the wrist. I don't expect that to happen though.
"You guys promised us..." (Score:4, Funny)
"Yeah, but those eEye guys didn't want to be on our Security-Through-Obscurity team! And we had all these great goodies for them!"
Re:"You guys promised us..." (Score:2)
I hear you.. However, this ofcourse is just the obvious leak that was supposed to be found real quick. The Official FBI Approved Backdoor (OFAB) will not be found until two years after Bin Laden is blown up :)
to e-mail me, please remove all yourclothes
viezerik... :P
It's to be expected... (Score:3, Informative)
Don't want to check to see if there's a patch needed for your OS? Don't worry, we'll have the OS check for you. We can't guarantee that your computer will be talking to our servers when it downloads the patches but hey! it'll be automatic! Come to think of it, we can't even secure our own servers so we're not too sure what you'll be downloading even if you are talking to our servers but hey! - it's automatic!
I can't think of a better argument for limiting the services an os provides than this fiasco.
FBI might have warned them.. (Score:2)
would make project Magic Lantern useless and idiotic.
UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:5, Informative)
Why care? Well, I found out after installing MSN Messenger that most of the features are useless behind a NATed network unless your router/firewall understands UPNP. Of course, Microsoft ICS and Servers understand it. I was getting frustrated since I couldn't use MSN messenger except for messages behind my home linux firewall. ICQ features like file transfer work fine by port forwarding the necessary ports or using a kernel module for it.
So, here's the interesting bit. UPNP works by telling the other client on the other end what your private IP address is. Microsoft's docs say this is necessary for the other client to be able to find out how to talk back to you. I think this is stupid. The other end of an MSN connection just needs to look at the source IP in the packets it receives and just send there and hope the owner of the IP knows what to do.
However, UPNP apparently knows how to handled multiple chains of NAT networks, kinda like I guess an old fashioned UUCP bang path. Problem is, it seems like one can modify that "bang path" to route return packets to false places. Can you say DDOS?
So I sent a rant to my friends about this on December 10, and about how UPNP is a security hole waiting to happen according to posts I read out of google searches...
Here's my rant...
Microsoft claims UPNP is a universal open standard. It'd be interesting to learn more about its origins and who is really controlling development of it, security of it, etc. Microsoft claims all manner of peripheral vendors will be supporting it.
Is the concept itself as flawed as it seems, or is this just yet another case of Microsoft's implementation of something being flawed?
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:3, Informative)
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:2)
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:2)
Yeah, that scales really well. Requiring that people leave outbound connections open to centralized servers for weeks at a time just so they can receive notification when events happen is just really bad design. Revealing internal IP addresses is also bad. Fortunately, SOCKS already solves enough of this problem to be useful (though it has its warts) and is supported by most programs that need to do this sort of thing.
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:2)
Microsoft has sort of a history of this. With Terminal Services, they log the IP address the client gives the server, instead of doing a getpeername() or something. (See this Bugtraq post [securityfocus.com].)
You've got to wonder what they are smoking. Maybe they're stuck back in the DTP/FTP days (1970s and '80s), but the nature of networking sure has changed since then, and wise programmers learn from the mistakes of the past.
Anyway, you want to talk protocols that break horribly with NAT, let's talk IPSec's out-of-band key-enchange mechanism. Grrrrr.
Am I the only one that thinks that long before IPv6 becomes common, everyone + dog will be behind NAT? Even when IPv6 becomes common, will the ISPs really give home users the 48 bits they're supposed to? Making protocols that work with NAT is not that hard, and as you point out, is better for security than some of the alternatives.
Grrrr. Thanks for reminding me of all this suppressed anger regarding stupid protocols.
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:3)
I think the MS implementation is the problem, not the concept. Most people get a bee in their bonnet about this because they think it breaks the NAT "security" model.
Problem is, NAT provides security because it breaks routing, not because it is a security system by itself. That someone has come up with a routing/networking technique that keeps NAT's address translation ability *and* provides inbound connection capabiltiies is really pretty cool.
However, because NAT has traditionally provided the secondary benefit of security to the interior network, any system that implements a way to connect to interior networks through NAT should provide at least three security models:
Re:UPNP is all about handling NATed devices (Score:2)
Don't bitch at me. Go read the Microsoft tech note [microsoft.com] on the topic and deploy the recommended Microsoft solution at your site as documented there.
An analogy with the biological world (Score:5, Insightful)
The opposite to this is what's called a monoculture, where one particular genetic structure is present in the large majority of the population. Such situations will usually not last long, beacuse once something is found that affects that population, it spreads quickly and decisively.
With Windows having such a large share of the market as it is, could this be considered the electronic equivalent of a monoculture? Would one major virus or security flaw cause much more damage to the net than otherwise would have happened, because of the homogenity of the net's computer systems in terms of OS?
Whether the king is Linux or Windows or MacOS, or..., is having a near monopoly market share ofany one OS a good thing in light of this philosophy? Hmm. GFood for thought.
Re:An analogy with the biological world (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An analogy with the biological world (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually a monoculture of clones.
Cracking spree holidays? (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably quite many of those computers go to people who are going to have it as their first computer. And what are they going to do first? Turn it on. And probably, go online with it..
And the crackers will be waiting for the easy prey.
Reminds me of the Simpson's episode .... (Score:3, Funny)
bonus karma points to anyone who correctly identifies the show number.
"Oh for christ sake"- Montgomery Burns after discovering a stray dog in his XP like high security control room.
You know (Score:3, Interesting)
This was mentioned earlier, but now the FBI is pushin it as well, Coincedence??
frustrated FBI (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like MS isn't the only one with good marketers
comment from a former Microsoft developer (Score:4, Insightful)
So what is up with those buffer overflows...do Microsoft developers hate users and not care about quality? Well, no. It only takes one buffer overflow in the whole system that hundreds of developers have worked on, to make it vulnerable.
At Microsoft the ultimate way people are valued is at review time when bonuses, stock options, and raises are awarded. Do developers get hosed for leaving buffer overflows in? Well, not as of when I left (April 2000). But maybe that will change, slowly.
Eventually you have to stop accepting excuses like "Gee code is really complicated and I thought I was being careful" or "we really tried to think through this design" and recognize that essentially every buffer overflow comes from being lazy as a developer, or not accounting for what kind of garbage packets can come in off the net. If Microsoft starts emphasizing that you can be fired for leaving a buffer overflow in, then things might change. Of course it's a little unfair, there is no doubt lots of clunky code in there that just doesn't happen to expose an externally exploitable buffer overflow (and merely crashes the system or something), but you start emphasizing the necessity to go over things with a fine-tooth comb to prevent buffer overflows, it will improve all the code.
Because although there may be a few cases where someone really tried to check boundary conditions and just did it wrong in the code, in most cases developers are just being lazy about writing the code robustly to begin with. Plus if you have some code to prevent this and you write it wrong, you haven't tested your code properly anyway.
More ruminations at this osopinion article [osopinion.com].
- adam
Re:comment from a former Microsoft developer (Score:5, Insightful)
So what is up with those buffer overflows...do Microsoft developers hate users and not care about quality? Well, no. It only takes one buffer overflow in the whole system that hundreds of developers have worked on, to make it vulnerable.
It takes only one buffer overflow in the whole system that any number of developers, from one to one million, have worked on to make it vulnerable.
It doesn't matter how careful you are. Zero defects at the individual level is a pipe dream. The goal of software quality assurance is that you test code to determine whether it conforms to the specifications with no astonishing side effects. Structured implementation (use of safe libraries, re-use of validated code) can reduce the effort and increase the quality of code.
Want to eliminate buffer overflow? It's easy. Just write a routine ONCE that sucks up characters and puts it into a buffer, debug the corner cases ONCE to ensure you can't go beyond the boundaries, and use that routine for all your work, without exception. Not even when marketing comes in and says "Hey, you didn't come out on top in performance when HAL Magazine ran their tests!" Oh, and your QA people have to actually try to execute some kind of buffer overflow as one part of their suite of test cases...
When a buffer overflow is discovered "in the wild," you find out the source of the buffer overflow and take appropriate action -- against the coder and against QA as well. You have to show these people that you MEASURE them by this sort of stuff.
By the way, don't forget that code should check for attempts to go "outside the box" by using unusual character sequences like ".." in URLs, too. Again, write a single block of code that does the job right, test the hell out of the corner cases, and use that code, without exception.
A Google search yields some interesting approaches. I would like to see the adoption as part of the ANSI definition of the C language an extension to the STR* library routines that are length-safe, such as the STRL* routines found in NetBSD; see the man page [openbsd.org] and the discussion in the Secure Programs HOWTO. [linuxpowered.com]
Don't kid anyone. Buffer overflow can be avoided, by putting in place the proper process and discipline to do the job right.
Why Many Hate Microsoft... (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember when NT 4.0 came out (they were fairly low key with NT 3.x) and Microsoft claiming it was far more secure than UNIX and you wouldn't have buffer overflows because the source was closed and people couldn't find them even if they existed.
I also remember many years ago them claiming NT was more secure and showing the number of submissions of security holes posted to Bugtraq (before NTbugtraq) there were for UNIX vs NT (back when nothing serious ran on NT and no one really cared less about it to look for holes).
Now they want their code running in everything, including acting as firewall devices. I find this so fucking funny I could just split a gut. You're going to protect machines running code "x" by installing a device running much of the same code "x" to protect those machines from the world?
I just find it a bit frightening. The entire world running on code from one manufacturer that is not open to public review. I'm even more surprised that foreign governments are so trusting of it.
You know what's scary? We just bought an EMC disk array and had to give it an IP address for management. Did a port scan on it. WTF? It's listening on netbios ports. Use smbclient to take a gander at it and low and behold....
Domain=[AZBYCXDWEVFU] OS=[Windows NT 4.0] Server=[NT LAN Manager 4.0]
Workgroup Master
AZBYCXDWEVFU CLARIION_SPB
I call EMC and they say "Oh, the new clariions run a stripped down NT kernel in their service processors." :-( Joy... my SAN is now trusted to that super sekure Microsoft code. At least I can block it from the world through my router which, for now, is running non-Microsoft code...
Can you imagine the harm one could do with a hole in THAT? The financial world survived WTC through redundancy and real-time mirrors of data kept in far flung locations. There are disaster recovery data centers where entire warehouses are filled with machines just waiting to kick in during a crisis. So now you have your storage area networks themselves controlled by Microsoft code. Just exploit the hole-of-the-week to get your code inside a corporate or government firewall, seek out these storage networks running NT kernel code, trash them, take out the primary and backup locations. Chaos.
Re:Why Many Hate Microsoft... (Score:2)
Quite often exactly the same code. So you have a monoculture of clones. Which is even more dangerous than a regular monoculture.
Surprised this happened now (Score:2)
But now the Republicans are in office, and faced with a real conundrum: what do they do when one mega-corporation is selling dangerous, unsecure products to all the other mega-corporations? Because that's who they're thinking about here. If it warmed the cockles of your heart that the government was concerned for all those consumers who ran out and bought XP, you're delusional-- they're worried about seeing more shit like this once XP gets widely adopted in the corporate world.
~Philly
I watch too much Law and Order... (Score:2)
Want to get government backdoors in the OS that runs almost every computer in the world? Threaten the company with trumped up charges which will ruin them for life, then cut deals with them so they can return to business as usual in return for their cooperation.
Buffer Overflow as a Decoy to bigger hole (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes sense, from the perspective of a defensive Microsoft. "Buffer overflow? Who hasn't slipped up once or twice and had a buffer overflow bug? We have our code scanners routing out the last one or two of these bugs, they'll all be gone soon and we'll all be safe."
The bigger gaff is that they designed the OS to say "hack me" (or words to that effect) whenever some other device--any other device--asks to fondle, as it were, the OS's drivers. That this is a huge security exposure is obvious to anyone who is old enough to remember the early days of hacking. Some hotshot designers at Microsoft, (probably with degrees in marketing, not computing) designed this "hack me" feature into the OS intentionally.
Now they have the attention of the NIPC/FBI. Even FBI agents (who, over the last 10 years, gave new meaning to the term "anti-intellegence") know that on Christmas day, millions of un-patched XP OS's are going on line, in the same 24-hour period. The hackers will be waiting to stick their electronic -er-fingers in those exposed UPNP ports and leave behind a little deposit.
Maybe, maybe not, the FBI realizes that some of those systems will have time-delay bugs planted in the pre-patched OS's. Then, downloading the patch will produce the false security that keeps the spirit of the XP season alive throughout the coming year.
The silver lining? Corporate PHB's, the holy grail of Microsoft marketing, will lose confidence in any of Mr.Bill's claims of reliability and security, once and for all. XP was supposed to be the one-size-fits-all OS, from palmtops to corporate web front-ends to data warehouses. (not that it was the first attempt at this unification by Microsoft, or even their competitors.) Even the golf-buddy execs are going to remember the day when the FBI started pushing patches to the monopolist's holey flagship.
Did anybody notice, last year, when Bill Gates started to cut the cord to Microsoft? He did see the big fall coming, you know. Not as stupid as we make him out to be, eh?
Federal Criminal Charges.. (Score:2)
This way the Government can come to a settlement with MS where those who were harmed by the hole can't sue MS.
Along the lines of the deal struck between the tobbacco industry and government.
Seriously, with all the digital rights issues going, certainly the compromise caused by such a hole but without
criminal legal action against mircrosoft is only going to tell people that lady justice doesn't have her blindfold on.
Thats' a serious problem! Assisting criminal activity knowingly.....
Sophistication? (Score:2)
And of course technical sophistication is so rare that the chances of finding but one person in the world both able and willing to exploit it is...about 99.99%
M$ Security problems web log? (Score:2)
It would be a neat place to refer people to who don't believe that M$ is a security problem.
Built-in firewall protects? (Score:2)
RAW sockets (Score:2)
The AG of MD (Score:2)
Maryland Residents should be writing our dear Mr. Curran, explaining the problem in simple terms, explaining that making users go into the internet for the patch is not sufficient for dealing with this faulty product, and demanding to see the OS recalled and a fraud investigation initiated.
Might want to copy the DoJ, even if Ashcroft is a sell out to Redmond.
Here's your chance, Maryland! Do us all proud.
If XP is most secure, imagine other Windows'! (Score:3, Funny)
``This is the most secure version of Windows we have ever released,'' said Culp, adding that complex software ``will always fall short of perfection.''
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011220/tc/mic
Significance (Score:2)
Now, of course there will be dozens of MS apologists on this thread, and you can do a lot of apologizing about this bug, after all they got a patch out before there were any known uses of the exploit, and on the other hand this vulnerability leaves your computer more wide open than almost any that have come before, but I'm not interested in taking that debate any further, as that is what the rest of the thread is about.
The reason I think this story has become significant is because this bug is actually getting reported by large news organizations. Slashdot might run an article every time some script kiddie finds a new hole in IIS, but when is the last time you heard about that on your local news?
This bug, however, has actually been featured on all the big news organizations, thanks to the government statement. I saw a two-minute piece on it on CNN and a 30-second piece on Fox News, both feturing the governments warning that the patch would not be enough and everyone should disable UPnP on their machine. Flipping by CNN Headline News, I noticed the headline at the bottom, "Win XP hyper-vulnerable to hackers."
It is getting people to be concerned about security that will get something done about it; security isn't a selling point right now. When was the last time you saw an OS (besides OpenBSD [openbsd.org]) listing security as its top feature?
So think what you will about the impact of the bug itself, our government should be applauded for once for finally getting the media spotlight on security.
Gov shouldn't be using MS anyway (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, NT at some point was rated secure when not networked.
Re:Gov shouldn't be using MS anyway (Score:3, Informative)
We all know that Microsoft lies, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, we all know that OpenBSD has proved them wrong, by proving not only that open source developers *want* to do hardcore security audits of the source code, but that doing hardcore security audits on source code prevents security holes from being released into the wild. OpenBSD [openbsd.org] hasn't had a remotely exploitable security hole in the default install in FOUR YEARS! Windows XP has been in release for for all of about two months, and already there's a major security exploit found.
This proves by Microsoft's OWN ADMISSION, either they do not hire people to do the hardcore security audits they say they can, or if they do, they can't do it as well as the volunteers who "obviously" don't do it at all because there's no monetary motivation to do so.
With lies like this, Microsoft couldn't get into a Better Business Beurau if they paid each of its members a billion dollars.
Re:They need to mind their own buisness (Score:2)
The DOD was instrumental in forming the basis of the internet, DARPA-NET [darpa.mil]
Man, I remember when it was a secret network.
No. No you evidently don't.
Re:Way to go FBI (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yet another link to MSNBC (Score:2)
Re:Monopoly has serious security implications (Score:2)
Beat me to it. "Monoculture" - I think we should be hearing a lot more about this word. It's not just a marketplace issue.
Of course they can't (Score:2)
Microsoft EULA: "...but if it turns out not to be, tough titties on you for trusting us when we said it was. You can't sue us, because you agreed you wouldn't at install-time. And we think we can afford better lawyers than you, anyway. So neener neener neener!"
The no-liability stuff in license agreements, I'm sure, began life with the noble purpose of protecting companies from getting hit with lawsuits by morons who should have known better, or greedy individuals just out to screw a company out of a quick million. Typical of everything it does, though, Microsoft has twisted the purpose of the EULA into its current form-- that of a "lawsuit-proof vest" used to prevent people or companies with, in many cases, very valid beefs about Microsoft products, from taking them to court over it, and allowing Microsoft to push crap on us with impunity and just shrug when we get bitten by bugs or security holes.
Imagine if other companies did this. What if you had to agree to a EULA on a train ticket before boarding the train, then then the train derailed because the operator was high on crack and speeding around a curve, and you wound up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? You'd probably never take the train again. But what about companies who have to spend large sums of money on antivirus software and on employees who have to stay late to undo the damage done by the Outlook/Windows Virus/Worm of the Week. They just accept it and keep on using the same shitty software.
If it were possible to sue the living fuck out of Microsoft over these bugs and security holes, I think Microsoft QC might get a little budgetary upgrade. But nobody wants to be the first person to test the validity of the shrinkwrap/disk envelope/click-to-be-bound-by-it EULA in a court of law.
~Philly
Re:Of course they can't (Score:2)
Re:Of course they can't (Score:2)
~Philly
Re:Can't get through? Different patch mirror sites (Score:2)