Cache Servers Keeping Exploit Code Alive

1960's architecture writes, "At last some evidence that exploit code is hiding on servers used to cache website content. According to Techworld, Israeli outfit Finjan has come up with evidence that real exploits have hidden on cache servers used by large search engines, effectively extending their life for periods of weeks after the original website had been taken down. The exploits detailed are from 2003-2004, but the principle would still apply to any exploit website around today, and any cache servers used by any one of the three unnamed search engines. It's almost literally malware 'life after death.'"

So let me get this straight

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

The brilliant study says: "content available as cache, even after the original source is not there, for some time"?

Bravo! Bravo! Revolutionary thought!

Yes, and so what? Haven't you patched?!

[FatSean (18753)]

Exploits from 2003 and 2004? You've had 2 years to patch your systems. Don't cry.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Here's a long-view perspective though. In my research (chemistry) I use a 486 almost daily. The computer is infected with an old innocuous boot-sector virus, and I simply don't remember enough DOS/486 era stuff to put on a proper antivirus solution without seriously diverting my research in the short term. Luckily, my modern-era computer is solid vs. this old school virus - this is the other reason I haven't bothered fixing the old one. If this were a nastier virus, and my AV protection didn't go back f

Re:

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

It sounds like you're missing their point: These "caching" sites are storing the data from the original site! This has got to be stopped immediately!

What about e-muggers?

[celardore (844933)]

Hey sucka, gimme your cache!

How about fixing the problem instead?

[jZnat (793348)]

How about fixing the problem that's exploited rather than try to hide the problem's existence in the first place?

More needs to be done

[nickheart (557603)]

... and think of all those old hard disks with exploits on them. We need to go to the dump and degauss all of them, NOW! C'mon people, this is a security issue.

gimme a break, a cache is a cache, it's supposed to have old information, even if that information is wrong, or destructive.

Fun with /.'s helpful link host's name feature

[jschottm (317343)]

Blah [yahoo.com]

Yahoo's cache can be addressed at rds.yahoo.com (compared to Google's cache, which uses IP addresses with no associated hostnames). Thus, all the various message boards that use the slashdot style of putting the domain name of the host will show yahoo.com even if it might be serving up an IE exploit that was hosted at mynastystuff.ru, increasing chances of click through. MSN uses a resolvable name for their cache as well, but it's at least identifiable as msncache.com rather than just msn.com.

Isn't the idea to fix the exploit?

[fruey (563914)]

I thought that if an exploit was discovered, systems that could be infected were patched, rather than worrying too much about the virus itself staying in the wild.

Sure, a lot of caches can keep very old content (the Wayback Machine www.archive.org would be a good example). But spread infection is mainly prevented by immunising systems, not by removing all known traces of the virus / trojan / etc. Bacteria and viruses can live in harsh conditions (relative to those that they require to thrive) but immunisat

Easy solution for future exploits

[The Clockwork Troll (655321)]

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOARCHIVE">
<META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="noarchive">

Done.

Re:

[lightyear4 (852813)]

Hmm! Who would've guessed microsoft's bot wouldn't adhere to the robot standard?

Hiliriously Stupid Article

[Sloppy (14984)]

This is more than just a theoretical danger.

Yeah, if you're running your vulnerable server code out of the same cache. ;-)

"What our latest report shows is that current processes to remove such malicious content from the Web are simply not going far enough to combat this very serious and growing threat."

That's because removing the content doesn't combat the threat at all. Fixing the bugs that allow malicious code to work, is the only way to combat the threat.

It is useless to try to put genies back into

Once its on the web, it will always be available

[AusIV (950840)]

Whenever there's an article about MySpace or Xanga, there are always people talking about how once you've published something to the web, you should assume it will always be available to anyone who wants it, even if you decide later you want to take it down.

A kid may write on their xanga about how drunk they got thursday night, then decide to take it down saturday, but it's always possible a future employer could come up with it anyway. Likewise, developers should assume that any exploits that have ever be

It's kinda like Polio and Malaria...

[Goldenhawk (242867)]

This article has (here on /.) already raised the question "Why can't we stamp out the viral code from archives?" Well, let's take a lesson here from biology.

The human race took two different solutions to polio and malaria. (I'm not a doctor, so forgive any minor inaccuracies.)

With malaria, we took the "stamp out the viral archive" approach. We tried to kill the carriers - the mosquitos. If we can eliminate all the mosquitos that carry the infection (like eliminating old internet caches), nobody will have to worry about getting infected. Well, guess what - it didn't work. Malaria is a HUGE problem in many third-world countries, routinely killing a million Africans a year and costing $12 BILLION annually in Africa alone (see last week's WashPost Magazine article for details; registration required: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/04/AR2006100400127.html [washingtonpost.com]). The problem? You simply can't squash all the bugs. Only recently has attention turned to developing an artificial method of immunity from the disease, so that the bugs won't matter (at least, from that perspective).

With polio, we took the approach that preventing infection was the key. We innoculated EVERYONE, so that even if the virus surfaced, it wouldn't cause infections. It's proven to be a largely effective solution, with only a few periodic pockets of infection occurring in remote parts of Africa where the youngest are not innoculated afresh. And that problem is fairly easy to control.

Same thing here. Forget the archives. That's naive. Instead, focus on better immunity.

Snooze

[hal9000(jr) (316943)]

So what? I find exploit code all the time, week, months, years after the fact. It's called Packet Storm Security [packetstormsecurity.org] or elsewhere.

Hell, google.com cache pages are great for shit like this.

Almost literally?

[tobiasly (524456)]

It's almost literally malware 'life after death.'

But is it almost literally, or literally almost? What would make it true life after death? (Literally)

Old exploits...

[Lead Butthead (321013)]

To the tone of a speech by a famous U.S. General --

"Old (xxploits) never die, they only (hid) away (in proxy cache...)"

Like Joe Rogan said

[Lord Kano (13027)]

Trying to get something off of the internet is like trying to get pee out of a pool.

Why not just patch the vulnerabilities? If publishers would fix their shortcomings then it wouldn't be an issue.

LK

Re:news to me

[geoffspear (692508)]

If by "like the live sites" you mean "not at all", then yes, they're scanned exactly the same.

Re:

[trongey (21550)]

why erase it?

Because that's what you do with bits of history that you don't like.
Or you can take the easy way out and just revise it.

Re:

[pete6677 (681676)]

It worked for Germany for a certain period in the mid-1900s.

Security through censorship. Wonderful.

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Exactly. The people behind this "discovery" seem to think that the best way to combat security holes is to go after the exploit demonstration code, rather than, say, actually fixing the problem.

That's what's really frightening; that there are exploits that have been in the wild and in the hands of the black hats for three years, which still have not been patched.

Those "exploit sites" are not the enemy here. If anything, they're a powerful tool that lets the 'good guys' be on equal footing, or near equal footing, with the bad guys, who are probably trading exploits around in IRC channels regardless of whether they're on the WWW or cached or not.

on with the slashdot mantra

[russ1337 (938915)]

Its important to cache, so you can find jems like this! [google.com]

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

site:slashdot.org "i for one welcome our new" overloards
Results 1 - 10 of about 25

site:slashdot.org "i for one welcome our new" overlords
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,270

Still seems really low...

Re:

[geoffspear (692508)]

Umm, the problem isn't exploits that attack the web server they're running on, it's exploits that attack the browser they're being viewed with, making the cache sites as dangerous to users as the original sites with the exploits on them. Or, at least, dangerous to those users who still use an unpatched copy of IE that's vulnerable to these old exploits. And really, viewing a cache of a formerly malicious site is probably the least likely way they're going to get exploited.