GoogHOle Exploits GMail, Picasa and 200K Other Sites

Giorgio Maone writes "Multiple Google-targeted exploits disclosed in the past 3 days could compromise your GMail account, steal your pictures from Picasa or impersonate you on almost 200,000 big sites which outsourced their search engines (vulnerabilities included in the price). If even Google, a very reactive company when web security matters, does face this kind of problems, how serious is the threat and what can you do, as a "normal" web user, to protect yourself?"

The real question:

How do we blame this on Microsoft?

Re:The real question:

Just quoting from the original so called 'Google' messages

If you've read our previous post Say Cheese! then you know that Google's Picasa registers the picasa:// URI in the Windows registry and it is possible to abuse this registered URI through a Cross-Site Scripting exposure to steal a victim's images.

So that's a windows only exploit?
We could not possibly blame that on windows.

Re:The real question:

We could not possibly blame that on windows.

That has absolutely nothing to do with Windows. It's poor design in a Windows/WINE-only application.

Re:Easy to blame M$

Of course, exploitable programs are all Microsoft's fault - which must be why the remote root exploits for Quake 1 and 2 for Linux [insecure.org] must be all Linus' fault!

Let's be honest, exploitable applications are OS independent. Though I guess honesty never really comes into it with you, hmm?

Nothing...

at the end of the day, when you rely on third party apps run by a completely different company, you can't do ANYTHING to protect yourself.

Re:Nothing...

Well, you can certainly stop using the apps... It's the problem of a user becoming too invested in any one thing (OS, DB, etc.). Whenever you become a pundit, a die-heard fan, or even just a casual, everyday user, you buy the whole package, bugs and all. You not only accept that an app proves useful to you, but that it will contain flaws that may prove problematic. Everyone seems to accept that because it is Google, they write perfect code. No way. The quality of code today is such that flaws such as these are inevitable. This doesn't make Google bad, stupid, or irresponsible; it's just part of the business. They will fix these things and life will go on.

Re:Nothing...

But I didn't build my car, my house, amy of my white goods, in fact 99% of what I use every day was built by third parties. I can and should demand that the good I purchase reach certain standards - in the UK this is enforced by law.

However, anything I accept for free, anything where there isn't some sort of agreed contract between my and the supplier, then caveat emptor (pun intended)

Re:Nothing...

This is true, however, there is one very large difference between Google and everything that you listed. While Google build the apps, similar to case of your car, house, etc, they are also operating and maintaining the product. The car manufacturer doesn't *run* your car, or maintain it. If it break, you go somewhere and pay a different third party to fix it, or you fix it yourself. In Google's case, they have your car, and keep it running, and they come around and drive you places when you want them to.

Trust nobody!

Neither can you if you hire people to implement it on your own company.

And if you do it yourself, you can be sure that the security will not be higher than your own skill set.

If you want to trust nobody, you might as well retreat to am isolated island somewhere, as you will be unable to function in a society. The key to functioning in a society isn't distrust, but to to be able to judge who to trust and who not to. Which is quite annoyingly mostly a social rather than a technical skill.

----

I personally trust the people at Google more than I trust the people and products responsible for our internal mail solution (which is also available as web mail). Especially with regards to competence (as opposed to integrity). So I would love for us to switch.

Not really clear

Is it completely in their hands?

How do I know if I'm vulnerable?

Can I do anything to protect myself?

If you run Firefox, install NoScript plugin

According to the article, exploint uses Cross-site scripting, also known as XSS. There is a firefox plugin called NoScript that limits cross site scripts. The article points you to http://noscript.net/features#xss [noscript.net] which describes the anti-XSS protection of noscript. The noscript pages suggests that you only load firefox plugins from addons.mozilla.org and sends you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 [mozilla.org] where you can download noscript.

Re:If you run Firefox, install NoScript plugin

If you run Firefox, install NoScript plugin

Since Firefox users like to push forward NoScript a lot as some safety precaution (I run it for 2 months, and finally got fed up with enabling virtually any site I visit, so it operates, what's the point), I read a very interesting article about the embeddable nature of IE.

You see, if Firefox can play WMP files on your machine (Windows machine) then every time you open a page (or video) in Firefox you potentially open IE, since WMP can open pages directly inside, and it uses IE regardless of your preferences.

Similar situation occurs with IM-s like Skype and ICQ.

As another commenter said above, security is illusion. Pure and simple.

Very few details.

The article is very low on details. I read it and I'm still not sure how it works, whom it affects and what I can do to protect myself (obviously, since I don't know how it works).

It would have been nice if they went into some more detail for technical users.

How to Protect Yourself?

Don't trust your data to 'on line' providers.

Safety is an Illusion

You'll never be safe.

Complex software designed for diverse interactions will always be vulnerable to some kind of attack, even if it's as simple as someone walking out of a data center with a thumb drive in their pocket. Almost every vulnerability stems from a "feature" implemented to make software easier/flashier/useful. Flexibility and expansiveness carry with them the price of vulnerability, and pretending otherwise is to wear blinders.

Of course developers should do their best to prevent security problems -- but there is only so much that can be done when you also need to implement Really Cool Stuff. Every door you make is a door than can be kicked in, no matter how good your locks. The real world has never offered perfect security because it can't -- why expect engineered items to be safe from all evil?

Treat software and computers with caution, like walking through a major city's downtown at midnight. Sure, it's dangerous at times -- but it can also be exciting. Just don't pretend that danger doesn't exist...

Call me paranoid...

FTFA:

For such an attack to be successful, the victim just needs to visit a malicious website while logged in Google, e.g. by following a link from an incoming message

... but I already use a separate SeaMonkey browser profile for my GMail account (don't want it being associated with my normal Google searches), and access untrusted URLs using another browser running under a different user. As a matter of habit (I do web-based stuff and I'm used to having several different browsers open). Probably not 100% foolproof, but helps me sleep easier at night.

Patches

I hope that I'll never have to install a patch from google. I that would be the word day. Does anyone know if google will fix this preoblem (I'm not even sure what the problem isother then theres 3 of them) or Are they going to tell us what we need to prevent those exploits?

How many work on Linux

Seems like these articles are never clear (or I just miss it) but how many of these exploits work on Linux?

this is really bad news

if only I had followed the trend to use gmail and picasa I would be quite upset

The answer is in the question...

If even Google, a "very reactive" company faces these issues, what can be done? The answer: Nothing can be done.

There is no way (unless you're writing something with hundreds, rather than thousands of lines of code) that every code path is going to be audited carefully enough to catch every possible bug. Good coding practices aside, programmers are human and make errors. You do your best to catch as many as you can, and that's all you can do. When you're a "consumer" of code, you look for an organization that seems to be doing this and use their stuff. There's no complete, proactive solution to bugs.

The important thing is that you want someone "very reactive." An organization that acknowledges these flaws up-front, publicly announces vulnerabilities with a work-around until they're patched, and then corrects problems in a timely manner. Some companies are more like this than others.

Dont use hosted services!!!

At the end of the day you can sight all kinds of flaws in Microsoft and closed source software. However, for as you're running that software LOCALLY on your computer, then you have the ability to take measures to protect yourself.

If you're drinking the google-juice just because it's "cool" or you want to support them because they're "not evil", you're only doing yourself a dis-service.

Keep your email local, dont save your passwords on a public "service", dont keep naked pictures of your girlfriend on your "G-Drive", etc etc etc

Common Sense

How is one protected in this case?

FTFA

For such an attack to be successful, the victim just needs to visit a malicious website while logged in Google, e.g. by following a link from an incoming message

This is something that can pretty much be said about any site where you login, and is really nothing new. If you're logged in someplace on one browser/profile, then anywhere you visit can potentially have the same rights as you on this site. With the prevalence of XSS and CSRF vulnerabilities around the internet these days, I don't consider any site "safe". This doesn't mean I suggest going all tinfoil hat, just be aware of what rights you currently have and take measures to protect the data that correspond how valuable the data is to you. If it's something really important, use a completely separate browser/instance for it; browse with Opera and read email with Firefox.

It's really an extension of "don't log in as an admin" mentality to web-based services.

Contradiction?

But.. but.. just yesterday we were told that Gmail was "revolutionary". /facepalm

Google? Very reactive?

If even Google, a very reactive company when web security matters

Google are among the worst when it comes to being reactive. Example [jibbering.com]:

For over two years Google has had an script insertion flaw, I reported it two years ago, and again a couple of months ago, but still it's not been fixed.

consider a vending machine

perhaps one of the simplest examples of a program involving transactions and user interaction

now consider the number of hacks you can use to exploit a vending machine (granted many are physical hacks, but you could call that analogous to social engineering hacks involving "real" software)

now, if something as simple and as straightforward as a vending machine can be exploited, then the obvious conclusion is that:

we should not express shock that google can be hacked, but we should express shock that any of us expected it couldn't be hacked

any computer program of sufficient complexity will be hacked. not could be. will be

and the internet is well into the zone of "sufficient complexity"

what to do

what can you do, as a "normal" web user, to protect yourself?

Ahhh... NoScript!

Turn off client side scripting.

OR

echo "127.0.0.1 google.com" >> etc/hosts

When I first started in web development it was hammered into us that client side scripting MUST degrade gracefully. What ever happened to that rule?

I hate sites locked to "Web2.0" only! For the most part I will not use them. There are only a handful of URL's in my scripting white list, most of them my own sites.

Yes, I use some client scripting, but it degrades properly.

aasdf

Perhaps we'll see a temporary decline in falling chairs?

Just installed NoScript

And Slashdot seems to be triggering NoScript quite a lot.

Security Through Obscurity

Don't draw attention to yourself.

If they don't have a reason to target you, they probably won't.

The Mac Method

I handle most third party apps for the Mac (which are usually on a .dmg) like this :
(1) Download .dmg to ~/noinstall/.
(2) when I wish to use that app I mount the image and use app from the temporarily mounted image.
(3) When done using app unmount .dmg.
(4) Profit!
Of course there are quite a few GNU apps on my Mac which were built and installed from source, but I've never had a reason to feel leery of those. All the G-apps and all third party proprietary apps are in ~/noinstall. Always knew that would pay one day...

Keep Your Own Secrets

I don't let websites keep my credit card info, or any password other than the one needed to unlock their own site, or any other personal info that is valid outside their own realm, unless their service won't work otherwise.

The Web would be a lot more secure if my browser had a keyring integrated with my own computer, and I kept my secrets on my own computer under my own control. When challenged by any server for a secret, my browser or other client SW I'm using should pull the secret from the keyring and supply it to the server. That service should let me use a master key from any remote terminal to query my own computer, over my home broadband or wherever I keep the secrets. All by a standard protocol that lets me just fill web forms (and other challenges) as I do now, possibly entering the master key and maybe an additional confirmation challenge to let the 3rd parties communicate, but otherwise just as transparent as just filling in the forms.

If a 3rd party server is going to store my secrets, I want it to be my bank. I don't know why banks haven't gotten into this business already, after well over a decade watching their profits multiply from the Web, along with many risks. Maybe Google will push a key distribution protocol like this in partnership with some banks. That would also finally get Google into the payment business to challenge eBay's PayPal, which I hate precisely because its (mostly unregulated) global Internet bank is a monopoly, and I don't trust PayPal with my secrets. If Google does recover from this crack, they might be solid enough to trust.

Replace 'Google' with 'Microsoft'

I see many here making excuses for Google ("You'll never be safe with online service providers", "There's nothing Google can do", etc) and offering solutions ("Use Firefox with Noscript", etc). But I can't help but laugh because I know that if this were about Microsoft web services being exploited, the comments would be completely different. The number of comments would be at least five times greater than they are here and would be filled with gloating and screaming over Microsoft's "incompetence" and whatnot.

You know that there is some truth in what I say.

It looks to me that there are major holes in Google's services, and they need to be called out on it, not given excuses.

What to do

There are no absolutes but the risks could be reduced by not using such bleeding edge tech/services (which seems against the Google always-beta policy), or by having true AI (not there yet though maybe something useful could be done now) at all the major nodes of the net that can understand what is going on in real time and block off those parties (although this is vulnerable to distributed attacks).

However this is perhaps good for me since I write search engines. One I installed at a big company for 5 years (and beat out Alta Vista at the time) got outsourced to Google instead when the replacement hardware manufacturer went out of business. Presumably though such a company as that one would not really even see the current vulnerability news as a blip on the radar yet, so Google has a short grace period to respond.

So what about their web office suite

How about people who were looking to move their internal office applications to google (there were hundreds of people here on Slashdot saying they were planning on doing just that), are their critical private documents at risk or not? I've never been fond of software as a service for internal business functions, and this seems like another concern point against it.

Where can you find this exploit?

Just Google it!

what I WILL do to protect myself...

nothing. relax and wait for google to fix the problem, as they surely will. Everything has some vulnerabilities, but the odds of them targeting me out of millions of people is very low. so low it's not a risk I feel any need to worry about. The endless "security" mantra is bullshit, mostly used to whip clueless consumers into making various moves from or to some product. Really it's an iterative process, an arms race if you will. Anything can happen. your office or home can be broken into very easily too ya know. So what? If you're really so fucking concerned about your precious pictures being access through picasa, maybe you should just learn to burn them to a cd and mail them to people.

"very *re*active"?

Very reactive is all well and good - but very proactive is better.

Oh ... the logic

what's the guarantee that crackers weren't using the vulnerabilities earlier than they were found. I think, the normal user is always vulnerable because the bad guys might, just might have figured the things out earlier and have been using them.

The lack of logic in that post is astounding. I recommend reviewing this brief summary: the economics of security researchers [blogspot.com].

How can anyone know for certain if the vulnerabilities they are finding and patching are truly overlapping that of the vulnerabilities exclusive to the bad guys (yellow circle overlapping red circle [blogger.com]), or if they are finding vulnerabilities outside of those known exclusively by bad guys (yellow peanut shape [blogger.com])?

Has anyone bothered to stop and think that maybe, just maybe, we should be focusing on making the totality of vulnerabilities (blue circle [blogger.com]) smaller instead of focusing on making the vulnerabilities known by the good guys (yellow circle) eclipse that totality (blue one)?

Re:Paranoia pays off

Whenever you're on a web page, NoScript blocks all scripts on the page except for those which originates from sites that you have allowed in the past. For instance, my FF window currently shows "Scripts Partially Allowed, 1/3 (slashdot.org)". That means that it is allowing scripts to run from slashdot.org because I clicked "Allow slashdot.org" in the past (I did that because I found Slashdot unusable without it). However, it is disallowing scripts from 2 other sites (google-analytics.com and doubleclick.net), because I haven't granted them permission to run scripts in FF. Any site it's never seen before will automatically be disallowed, unless you click on the NoScript icon at bottom right and allow it.

-Mike