Hacker Finds Multiple PDF Backdoors 147
Gungadin writes "Eweek.com has a story about a British security researcher figuring out a way to manipulate legitimate features in Adobe PDF files to open backdoors for computer attacks. David Kierznowski, a penetration testing expert specializing in Web application testing, has released proof-of-concept code and two sample PDF files to demonstrate how the Adobe Reader program can be rigged to launch Web-based attacks without any user action. He claims there are least seven different ways to backdoor a PDF."
Non Adobe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Evince, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
"** (evince:18185): WARNING **: Unimplemented action: POPPLER_ACTION_UNKNOWN, please post a bug report with a testcase."
Note that a different implementation only gives you DIFFERENT bugs and holes, as anyone who has followed exploits in xpdf knows.
Re:Evince, etc. (Score:5, Funny)
Popplers?!? (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omicron_Persei_VIII [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Non Adobe? (Off-topic) (Score:2)
I am using Slashdot's Discussion2 and I accidentally modded you redundant. Just posting this reply to cancel the mod.
I find it very odd that there is no confirmation before a selected mod is applied. I think I'll submit that as a UI bug. Sorry for the inconvenience.
BTW, I meant to mod the parent as Interesting, because he raises a great question: Are these flaws of the PDF format? Or just Adobe's implementation (or extensions)?
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Not necessarily.
Some gPDF [securityfocus.com] vulnerabilities.
I didn't find any Evince vulnerabilities in my limited search, but that doesn't mean there will not be one. You will most likely remain safe from 'sploits targeted towards Adobe users by not using the Adobe PDF reader, but that should be obvious.
Windoze and IE implicated, again. (Score:5, Interesting)
Evince and gPDF, since these lack support for a lot of the additional features of PDF am i any safer?
From the Fine Article:
the target's browser is automatically launched and loads the embedded link. "At this point, it is obvious that any malicious code [can] be launched," Kierznowski said.
That looks like a lot of auto magic nonsense that most free software would not do. The only thing that's obvious to me is that any malicious w32 code is going to bounce off my browser. My pdf reader, kpdf, did not take the first step of automatically launching a browser and my browser would not take any of the dozens of brain dead and spam friendly automatic steps that makes IE a dissaster. A computer that's not internet safe but is connected to a network is always at risk.
Note that it's not a "lack of features" that makes kpdf work right. Kpdf has links that work when you press them, table of content browsing, keyword searches, text and image cut and paste, and prints flawless copy. Those are the features you want in a pdf viewer. Automatically popping up a browser is a feature you don't want.
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Core PDF freature and not a bug anyway (Score:3, Informative)
In my view this claim is idiotic anyway. I just found a giant security hole in HTML where if they view my page or email with a link and if they click on it, it might take them to a malicious site.
*yawn*
Re:Core PDF feature (Score:3, Insightful)
More cool KDE display options. (Score:2)
For version 0.5.1 (might be old by now) of kpdf, the thumbnails in the side pane do page numbering as you want. I'm not sure about the rotation because I have not needed to do that in years, but that would be a useful feature. It's on the wish list [kde.org] and you can fall back to Kghostview if you run into something that really needs rotating. It should show up under View->View Mode of Konqueror as an option when you look at pd
GhostView (Score:2)
If it's full of "interactive content," then, well, you shouldn't have made it a PDF, since I'm pretty unlikely to jump through hoops to discover what you're trying to say. Use HTML or PowerPoint or what have you if you really need interactivity. My distrust
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--firefox-does-not-have-a-spell-checker-extension
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Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Huh huh, penetration.
</beavis_and_butthead>
Who started giving this title?
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
It's not a vulnerability, it's an exploit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not a vulnerability, it's an exploit... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm looking forward to someone giving a definitive answer to this burning question. I can't sleep until I know if my Adobe Reader has multiple exploits or multiple vulnerabilities.
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Exploit : Vulnerability
So what this guy has done is develop exploits for pre-existing vulnerabilities in PDF. No?
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An exploit would be more along the lines of the old outlook viruses. Outlook used to allow arbitrary scripts to be run on mail loading, and messages to be sent to an entire address book. Combine these two, and you have an exploit. It's behaving completely as
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Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Confused (Score:4, Informative)
Many of these features are quite helpful for corporate clients, but maybe shouldn't be allowed by default.
In retrospect, some of the other free 3rd part PDF viewers, that don't support those fancy features, might be better for people to use:
http://www.icesoft.com/products/icepdf.html [icesoft.com]
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Will turning off javascript within Acrobat prevent the exploit?
(I run IE w/javascript enabled, but not Acrobat. Go Figure)
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oops..... (Score:1)
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Dear God. (Score:1)
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Linux version of acroread seems fine (Score:5, Interesting)
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Either way, it's time to start letting clients know that PDFs have been added to the list of "potentially risky" file types.
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Same here (RPM version 7.0.1-1), except the dialog box does NOT say what URL is going to be opened. And it refuses to save any browser pr
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I got an interesting result on mine (under Linux) in that it asked me if I wanted to config my browser settings. I answered 'yes' and was then directed to a config page where I could input which browser command I wanted to use to launch my browser. It looks like this could easily be set to an interme
Firefox on Windows XP is sane (Score:2)
Curiously, both XP and Firefox updated over the last two days.
pr0n (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen quite a bit of pr0n. There's way more than seven ways.
clarification (Score:3, Funny)
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Sources claim... (Score:5, Funny)
Load PDFs with Acrobat in seconds (Score:5, Informative)
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Load PDFs in milliseconds (Score:3, Funny)
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I can't believe that a company like Adobe can make such bilge like Acrobat Reader. Foxit looks literally the same, but done right!
Yippee Skippee (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait, this isn't a good thing, is it... And i'm willing to bet Adobe is not really all that happy about it either...
Maybe this will prod them into getting back to their roots of a simpler system that did not take 30+ seconds to start up and did not bring a browser to its knees when it decided to act up... Or maybe i could just be dreaming.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Apple, along with Preview, has its own implementation of rendering and viewing PDFs
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Stroller.
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Good job, bigot boy!
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Fear not: the title (replicated from TFA) is glaringly inaccurate in an attempt to sensationalise and induce general panic.
As even the blurb above states quite clearly, these are not vulnerabilities in PDF, a file format, they're vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader, an application (and one which most OS X users have no need for, thanks to Preview).
In fact, TFA seems to indicate moreover that the attacks are specific to Windows.
Nothing to see here .... unless you use Adobe Reader in Windows.
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Penetration (Score:2, Funny)
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Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
Has everyone downloaded the new version of firefox because 5 out of 7 of the vulns it fixes are javascript related. Why do we have to keep going through this, are people in denial or something? We all know what the problem is. There's only one security advisory I'd like to see for javascript problems, the mother of all ad
Javascript (Score:1)
Well the first order of business would be to hunt down an kill all the "web developers" who insist on using javascript for essential parts of their site. If it wasn't for them, I could just use dillo like I want to and not worry about javascript crap...
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PDF does not contain PostScript. The outward appearance of PDF's high-level data types (like dictionaries), and the PDF graphics language were inspired by PostScript, but it is NOT a stack based language. You can't, for instance, write a PDF which computes Mandelbrot's fractal and displays it (as you could with a PostScript program).
Get the facts straight. Just because a PDF looks "kinda like" a PostScript file in a binary editor doesn't mean it's PostScript.
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I know I'm replying to this late (I was away for a week). And my God, does Slashdot really have a million users now? Anyway...
The cool thing about PDF is that PDF documents can be cryptographically signed. It would be easy to implement (if not implemented already) a system where JavaScript functionality is only enabled for documents signed by a trusted key. Then, the government (or some other trusted entity) could take advantage of JavaScript in PDF and other untrusted documents could be treated with a hi
Easy (Score:5, Informative)
Free (Score:3, Informative)
Better yet, use Ghostscript [wisc.edu]. It's also much lighter and faster than Acrobat Reader, and -- more importantly, and unlike Foxit Reader -- is Free Software.
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Yes, but the default version has an annoying splash screen registration screen to click through every time you open gv or gsview.
As a result, I stopped using their reader. Free and Annoying.
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> Yes, but the default version has an annoying splash screen registration screen to click through every time you open gv or gsview.
Nope, it doesn't have an annoying splash screen, but does have a small unobtrusive advert in the top right - which doesnt need internet access, only advertises FoxIts own products AND can be turned off through the menus.
> As a result, I stopped using their reader. Free and Annoying.
Definately free, but easy to use for idiots. At least it doesn't crash Firefox
Dug
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So, in that case, what GPL PDF viewer should Windows users use?
"Hacker"?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. I know the old definition of "hacker" and have been proud to be called one (in that sense) in the past, but the headline clearly refers to the malicious definition of hacker. This headline seems to serve no purpose other than deliberately blurring the line between legitimate researchers and the jerks who exploit weaknesses.
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"IT: How Hackers Identify Their Targets
Posted by Zonk on 0:07 16th September, 2006
from the drawing-a-bead dept.
narramissic writes "In a recent article, security guru Brent Huston writes about research he did to get inside the minds of spammers and expose some of the processes they use to identify potential targets. "
The "hacker" term used there is in spammer/zom
must....quote....Wargames... (Score:1)
Jim Sting: [yelling] Mister Potato Head! Mister Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets!
Malvin: Yeah, but Jim, you're giving away all our best tricks!
Jim Sting: They're not tricks.
Only on the Windows version (Score:1, Informative)
Easy Fix: Disable those plugins! (Score:2, Informative)
I just want a reader, not a full fledged pseudo-browser app with tons of security exploits - there's already one called Internet Explorer on my PC!
So I've moved away: Accessibility, Acroform, ADBC, EScript, Multimedia, weblink, webpdf, etc.
Now when you open those "exploit" links, you get an pop-up saying, "The plug-in required by this 'URI' action
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yes even much faster than the stripped down version of acrobat reader
Back Door Demo #2 - Link Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
http://michaeldaw.org/projects/backdoored2.pdf [michaeldaw.org]
Malicious links are a PDF problem? (Score:1, Insightful)
Just about anything can automatically open a link. If there is something malicious on the page it is loading, that's a browser problem.
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More interestingly, as many of Mac users got sick of Adobe or Apple PDF plugins, I use Schubert IT browser plugin (free for non commercial use) inside Omniweb 5.5
Now, this is Mac and OS X... No known "go to page and get spyware if your system not updated" stuff around.
This is big deal for Windows.
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Apologies, I misunderstood the problem.
Again, launching a URL on Windows could be disaster.
Doesn't work on Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Doesn't work on Linux (Score:5, Funny)
da ladies... (Score:2, Funny)
guy: i'm a penetration tester.
....fill in rest.....
Acrobat Reader is awful (Score:2)
There are more usable, faster, and safer alternatives.
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There are Gnome and KDE UI standards? Who knew?
OK, OK, that's snarky. But when you port a program from one OS to another -- Windows to Linux in this case -- there are going to be UI problems. Most Mac programs are human factors disasters when ported to Windows. And heck yes, that includes Excel. Personally, I've always found Excel to be major a
Alternatives already exist (Score:2)
Only 7? (Score:1)
But remember there must be 50 ways to leave your lover
PDF version (Score:2)
Read PDFs with gsview (Score:2)
Most PDFs can be viewed with gsview [wisc.edu], the old Postscript previewer. It doesn't have all that crap Adobe put in like WebBuy, but nobody uses that anyway. Gsview will display PDFs that older versions of Adobe Reader won't.
OK How do I protect my machine? (Score:2)
The second test too failed the same way.
But in the tabs where I expected pdf docs now there is a 404 Not Found error. What does it prove?
What should I do to remove these fancy features from pdf readers?
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Turing complete (Score:2)
I can understand the media using "hacker"... (Score:2)
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-Eric
Search feature information leak (Score:2)
So, as a website owner you get the search terms used on your documents as 404 errors in the logfile.
(I have not yet tried to answer those queries with a 200 response, who knows what happens then...)
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PDF is incredibly useful...to people other than yourself. The bloat that annoys you so much guarantees layout and color fidelity to people who care about those things. Do you find PostScript printers bloated and wasteful?
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PDF is designed to be a read-only document presentation format. Sort of a globally understood "print to file" format
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30 seconds to show the next page in a 1GHz machine with xpdf.
PDF does something to bitmap images that makes large ones unbelievably slow to display. I don't know what, but it's definitely a very slow format in that respect.
Re:Does anyone else think this is good news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, AcroRead takes longer and longer to load, defeating the purpose of being this ubiquitous reader Adobe is pitching. Yes it's not open.
But still, it's the saftest way I have found so far to send someone a document so I could be sure that when they open it, it looks exactly like I intended it to look. That to me is key: I care about the looks of what I do.
Alain.