Four New Unpatched Windows Vulnerabilities 273
peeon writes "Right before Christmas, four new Windows NT/2k/XP vulnerabilities were posted to the Bugtraq list. This story discusses two of the vulnerabilities in the LoadImage function (buffer overflow) and Windows Help program (heap overflow), but the Chinese company discovered two more exploits in the parsing of a specially crafted ANI file (causes DoS). A Bugtraq posting has more details."
Re:Yeah.. ok.. (Score:1, Insightful)
.. posted from newly esspee2d xp abomination (Score:5, Insightful)
30 megs of critical/av signatures to be done over diallup another time
damn you micro$hite
Re:Timing of the post (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Grr (Score:3, Insightful)
At least I won't have to spend Christmas removing viruses, trojans and spyware from my Dad's computer. I bought him a Mac. Worth every penny in reduced aggro.
Re:Forced Upgrade. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Timing of the post (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Forced Upgrade. (Score:5, Insightful)
b) The list you give is mostly patches. There are four base OS' on that list and 6 patches, all of which are free.
c) If it bothers you, feel free to run an unpatched OS of your choice, whether it be Windows, MacOS or one of the many *nix variants.
Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Every box at my workplace is patched with SP2. In this case, it doesn't matter - one of the exploits is still useable.
The problem is not (this time, thankfully) the corporate enterprise deployment of windows. It's friends and family. Every time a new windows exploit like this comes out, jerk spyware/worm/virus writers are on it within 24 hours, populating their zombie networks with your mom's, friends' and families' computers. Manditory regular patching at work is easy. The same for people you see occaisionally who are not computer literate is not. These are the people who it really screws with - for example, all one of my buddies wants to do with his dell is play games, send email and surf. He knows nothing beyond that, and is certainly not going to run down to the basement on christmas eve to make sure his operating system is secure RIGHT NOW.
This business of "patch or you deserve it" is utter BS. I maintain that virus writers should be dragged into the street and beaten with keyboards, followed shortly by geeks who empower them by putting any of the blame on the end user. If I paid thousands for an OS site license, I should not be spending my holidays fixing it. If I spend hundreds for an oem copy at home, the same applies. The only ones who deserve ANYTHING bad here are the exploiters and the providers of the crappy OS in question.
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it really this hard... (Score:4, Insightful)
or just writing to whatever address the pointer says w/o checking that *p > MAX_MEMORY_ADDRESS. These are errors a beginner programmer would make, and from the looks of how common these errors are in Windows that is the type of folks MS uses. It also says to me that they don't use any sort of Automated Code Analysis tools which can catch these sorts of errors. Or maybe they don't do any indpendant QA at all? It's pretty pathetic when the worlds most popular software is made by a company that probably doesn't meet SEI Level 2 criteria. I only wish that the laws allowed someone to sue for lost time/income from the "basic" errors that shouldn't have been present.
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Timing of the post (Score:3, Insightful)
i wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, carrying $1000 in cash is dumb, but there are easily accessible alternatives. Credit cards, debit cards, traveller's cheques, travel wallets, etc are all viable alternatives. Carrying cash is like opening attachments from unknown senders. Getting your windows box 0wned without your action because a new exploit came out 8 hours ago is like the jacket manufacturer attaching a big red "steal from me!" sign to the back and cutting a pickpockt access hole out, too. (Except then they take over the world jacket manufacturing business and force you to wear one unless you want to freeze or learn to sew).
To use the token comparison to a vehicle - yes, when you buy a car you should be responsible enough to get it serviced from time to time, and act on any critical recall issues that might arise. You shouldn't however have to open the hood and check the internals 3 times per day to ensuire it doesn't explode and require expensive maintenance the next time you turn the key in the ignition.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying sysadmins should have no responsability whatsoever. They are after all paid to deal with systems. But when was the last time you head of a dell salesperson telling an unexperienced buyer that if they wish to have their computer on regularly they'll need to spend 5 minutes every single day, and an hour of two each week making sure they're machine doesn't get destroyed?
Definition of "Patched/Unpatched" (Score:4, Insightful)
Patched Open Source: A vulnerability has been identified and someone is thinking about fixing it. Because the time between discovery and fix is vanishingly small, there are no unpatched open source vulnerabilities.
Patched Windows/Proprietary: A patch has been available for not less than 12 months and is installed on not less than 99% of affected systems. It will be several months, if not years, before vulnerabilities fixed by Windows XP SP2 will be considered patched.
Re:Forced Upgrade. (Score:1, Insightful)
You obviously are parrotting the geek mantra and have never used the windows update tool.
Since I started using the windows update, I have always been able to use the custom install option to see what's gonna be downloaded. And to deselect things I don't want. Then maybe that's the problem. If you knew something about computers, you wouldn't be so afraid to venture out of the typical install realm.
humbug?
Safety in Numbers (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem isn't that a "patch is available". It's that "our fucking server didn't come back up in the past, until $1200 and 48 hours later, and as far as we know, no one has broken in just yet so we're going to risk it this time".
Kind of like speeding on the freeway. There's hundreds more sons of bitches, just like you. And the idea is that you'll see them getting pulled over before you are, so you'll have time to reduce your speed (or disconnect your internet connection like Gabe Newell walked around, telling his entire staff when a German kid tiptoed in).
When you are a gazelle, there is safety in numbers.
Or so the theory goes...
Re:"Four New Unpatched Windows Vulnerabilities" (Score:2, Insightful)