Security Hole In Windows 7 UAC 388
An anonymous reader writes "A prolific blogger is warning of a possible security hole in the latest beta version of Windows 7. Long Zheng has posted both a description and a proof of concept for an issue that could allow an attacker to skirt the User Account Control component in the new version of Windows. The problem, explains Zheng, is that UAC itself is controlled through system settings. This can allow an attacker to completely disable the protections without user notification. Zheng notes that the issue can be easily fixed by changing the UAC setting to notify users when Windows settings are altered, and that Microsoft could remedy the problem by prompting the user when the UAC setting is altered."
"Gerald" (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows from recent news that microsoft has removed the innards of windows 7 and replaced them with "gerald", a lovable computer literate field mouse.
Gerald is cheap, congenial, and zippy, but unfortunately has very poor judgment.
Re:"Gerald" or ... (Score:2)
This?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JMuJ6Wy1j0 [youtube.com]
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He's getting very old, but he's a good mouse. [youtube.com]
Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:3, Insightful)
This was discussed elsewhere (heise.de) earlier...
Short answer: this only works iff you are logged in as Administrator already...
Prompting the user when this setting is altered is quite worthless - if I have a script on my computer that can simulate keypresses and mouse clicks *nothing* will hinder it to click on "I've read the warning". Even adding captchas/moving the warning around/whatever will only be a fake-solution that will only work 'till there's a better script.
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Apparently Raymond Chen posted a response at http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/21/9353310.aspx [msdn.com]
It appears that they are getting a "Service unavailable" prompt. Could it really be that they are running their blogs on an IIS server that is running Windows 7? Shock horror, it appears that someone has elevated privileges using vbscript to bypass UAC and has changed the IIS app pool to run under a guest account!
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Informative)
That's completely wrong. The entire point of the UAC prompt is that it can't be automatically dismissed by simulated user input. The UAC prompt runs on a separate virtual desktop from everything else (which is why it flickers), and the kernel enforces that only real user input can touch it, and you can't run your own code in the kernel without going through a UAC prompt, so it's secure.
If this guy is right and UAC can be disabled without user input, then the entire UAC system instantly becomes pointless. Saying that you shouldn't be running as administrator is stupid; UAC's purpose was to make it safe to use administrator accounts. If you can't do that, then UAC has failed. Anyway, Administrator accounts are the default and therefore what 99% of users are going to be using.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying that you shouldn't be running as administrator is stupid; UAC's purpose was to make it safe to use administrator accounts.
Uh no. UAC's purpose is to make it possible (in practice) not to use administrator accounts. Pretty much the complete opposite.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Informative)
I'm afraid you're wrong. When UAC is on programs you execute are run under your user account which is normally (by default) a member of the Administrators group. However, the programs are run in a special mode where they are prevented from actually using most of the administrative rights granted to your account. (You can read all about it in Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].) When a UAC prompt comes up you don't have to type a password because you're not logging in to a different account; you're just granting permission to use the full administrative rights your account already has.
It is also possible to use UAC from a non-administrator account. In this mode you must type a password every time a UAC prompt comes up, instead of just clicking "continue". Few people do this because it is not the default setup and it's even more annoying than regular UAC.
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Why is it that I can run as an 'admin' account on both Linux and OS X with out this happening? If I need the power I have sudo from the command line or OS X gives me a prompt.
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The short answer: Because you're not really running as an admin. On OS X, the "admin" accounts are not really admins. They are allowed to authenticate to use root privileges however. To put it simplified... for *nix, regular user accounts are a member of the "users" group. If you decided that user account should have access to the sudo command, you add them to the "wheel" group (at least that's how it's setup on my distro).
Now, let's compare to Windows Vista/Windows 7: Your "regular" user account is actuall
This is completely false. (Score:5, Informative)
That is 100% not true. Your user account *is running as a regular user* no matter what group it is in. It doesn't matter if you are in the admin group (unless you stupidly disable UAC, in which case you basically run as root).
"UAC" = "sudo [program name]"
"Vista, Administrator Group" = "your account is in
"Vista, non admin group" = "sudo [program name] with password, but that depends on the group policy... "
Your highly moderated post is 100% mis-information and is *not true*. YOU ARE NOT RUNNING AS ROOT UNTIL YOU ELEVATE VIA UAC!!
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Uh no. UAC's purpose is to make it possible (in practice) not to use administrator accounts. Pretty much the complete opposite.
So how is one to use an administrator account without using an administrator account. You've completely missed the boat here. The gp is correct and you are wrong. The point is to allow secure access to administrator accounts without having to actually, explicitly log in as a desktop user as an administrator. So in that sense, you are right, but it does not change the fact the entire
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Insightful)
And only when Microsoft change this will Windows be half way towards being secure.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem, and one that doesn't have a good techincal or sociological fix, is that most windows users are doing administration duties that far exceed their skills. Users get confronted with all sorts of dialogs they don't understand but just want to get on with it. I bet you, that if you popped up a page to someone saying "This video needs a newer version of flash" and redirected them to some completely bogus page that gave them a plugin with a completely bogus signature most people would go ahead and install it anyway. What is the latest version anyway? Couldn't even remember who makes it, and those companies keep on merging and rebranding and whatnot. No amount of UAC, or running as an unprivilidged user could possibly fix that because they are the ones with the admin keys and they're handing them out too easily.
Most users don't understand trust, they want to see a nice little lock icon telling them this site is safe, this site is bad. Same goes for plugins. Same goes for software. If you try educating them they'll just go blank *bad thing* *bad thing* *REALLY bad thing* but they won't understand and just want the simple answer. There's some very professional looking sites out there that appear to give you good software. They often even look better than the real deal because the frauds are all about appearances while the real sites focus on delivering good software, no offence intended. While it does amount to some degree of security scissors, most users would be better of if they only downloaded from safe, verified sources of software and plugins. If only Linux would stop asking all the other technical questions, the repository model would be much better for these people. It's not the end-all and be-all of security but it concentrates 99% of the superuser tasks in one place and makes it that much harder for some random application to throw up a superuser prompt.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is in a tough position with regards to this. A large portion of the annoyance with Vista was 1) compatibility, which stemmed from bad time frames and poor vendor interaction, admitted, but also from enforcing proper security and structure that they hadn't done, that broke poorly written code. 2) from UAC going off very frequently due to applications constantly trying to elevate their privileges which is in most cases unnecessary.
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Um, that's what they've done. User programs that are causing UAC prompts are built wrong; they're trying to write to \Program Files, and that's been a no-no since Win2k. That's why many programs require Admin access. UAC was SUPPOSED to be annoying so that developers were forced to fix their badly implemented applications. That was the idea anyway, whehter or not it had the intended affect I don't know. Probably not, since people bitch about UAC (and many of these same who run Linux have no problem supp
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No it doesn't. If you install Vista with all the defaults then you are a member of the Administrators group. You still have to go out of your way if you want to start out with a plain old unprivileged user.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Informative)
No it doesn't. If you install Vista with all the defaults then you are a member of the Administrators group. You still have to go out of your way if you want to start out with a plain old unprivileged user.
"Administrator" in Vista is not the same as "Administrator" in earlier versions. It is akin to be being an 'admin' in OS X or Ubuntu - it just means you can elevate your privileges if required, not that you can do whatever you please.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Interesting)
When has a windows administrator account ever meant that you could do whatever you please?
I'm sat here right now, running an admin account on XP, and if I try to delete the "Desktop" folder in my own account, I can't. It tells me "Desktop is a Windows system folder and is required for Windows to run properly. It cannot be deleted". Never mind the fact that I've changed the location of that folder by fiddling with the registry to put it on a separate hard drive, the redundant copy on C:\ is still protected against deletion.
Contrast this against the stories about *nix systems where some fool runs rm -rf as admin and it only stops deleting things when it deletes the delete command itself... that is being allowed to do whatever you want.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Informative)
Well it's not that simple. On OS X for example you can be an administrator and you still can't delete system files. You need to be root to do that. Also, in OS X you can not create "root account", and login into your session as root. It is simply not allowed and impossible to do. On Linux you can.
So for that hypothetical admin user to delete everything he would have to first become root (either by doing sudo, or starting a root shell, being authenticated first) and then executing rm -rf /
So, to recap, being an Administrator and just executing rm -rf / will not delete system files.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Informative)
Also, in OS X you can not create "root account", and login into your session as root. It is simply not allowed and impossible to do.
sudo su -
Congratulations, you're logged in as root.
sudo passwd
Even more congratulations are due, you now have the ability to login from the login window as root.
So, to recap, being an Administrator and just executing rm -rf / will not delete system files.
Actually, on an OS X system there are (or were, I haven't looked for a while) a lot of system-level files (including a lot of stuff in /Applications, like Installer.app) that are writable by any 'admin' user. So even without elevating, an 'admin' user could do a lot of damage to an OS X machine.
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Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:4, Insightful)
Easier said than done.
Many developers are lazy and create apps that only work if the USER is an administrator. Other times it will only work if the user that installed the app is the USER (Again, need administrator to install it in the first place!).
BTW: Fixing this is my bread and butter.
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Insightful)
Prompting the user when this setting is altered is quite worthless - if I have a script on my computer that can simulate keypresses and mouse clicks *nothing* will hinder it to click on "I've read the warning".
You mean apart from the inability of your script to interact with the separate Desktop that UAC prompts occur on ?
Re:Short: Don't work as Administrator (Score:5, Informative)
You mean apart from the inability of your script to interact with the separate Desktop that UAC prompts occur on ?
Right on the money.
I use Synergy 2 [sourceforge.net], which lets me control my keyboard and mouse from another computer over the network. It's functionally no different to a keypress simulator like the G.P. mentioned.
When using Synergy, I cannot use the remote mouse and keyboard to accept UAC prompts. I have to move to the local machine and physically click the button locally for it to work. Same goes for administrative apps -- if an app is running with administrative privileges, Synergy cannot register clicks on the privileged window. Unless I run Synergy itself as an administrator.
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In Linux (and OS X if you enable the root login) when you're root, it's assumed you know to not shoot yourself in the foot. In OS X, an admin isn't root. To actuall be root, you need to edit a config file (I forget which one) to enable the root login, then you can log in as root. However, OS X 10.2 and later make the admin process so friendly there is little to no need to ever log in to the desktop environment as root. If you need root in OS X, it's generally only for custom configurations of apache or sam
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UAC, believe it or not, can't be controlled by scripts or other software-based inputs - it only accepts input from physical hardware. Which is a good thing (assuming this bug is fixed which would get around the need to do so, anyways). I don't know the tech that's causing that to happen (a sibling poster explains it better), but I can say that it DOES work.
Or, at least, this was the case using a Vista admin account. Found it out the hard way when trying to click OK in a UAC prompt via peripherals being s
The beta worked! (Score:5, Funny)
Even the malware will be ready for Windows 7!
Microsoft already replied (Score:5, Informative)
MS have already said that this flaw is "by design" to stop the appearance of too many UAC prompts when users alter their own system settings
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090131/microsoft-dismisses-windows-7-uac-security-flaw-insists-by-design/ [istartedsomething.com]
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* The only way this could be changed without the userâ(TM)s knowledge is by malicious code already running on the box.
* In order for malicious code to have gotten on to the box, something else has already been breached (or the user has explicitly consented)
What exactly is UAC then trying to protect people against? If protecting against malicious code isn't in the requirements, then it seems pretty useless.
Re:Microsoft already replied (Score:5, Insightful)
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block further attacks obviously.
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There is no way to properly prevent further attacks once a box is compromised. That's the nature of being compromised.
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I don't see how UAC was supposed to prevent you from downloading said malware, nor should it prevent you from running it - what it should be doing is preventing it from doing anything you didn't authorize it to do.
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As I understand it, the problem is that the app that sends the keystrokes (standard windows messaging APIs to interact with a UI) does not have to get around UAC at all. It can simply go to the control utility, lower the UAC level, and reboot.. no prompts (unless UAC is at the highest level - it is 1 lower by default), nothing. ..can now do its thing without worry.
After the reboot, the -actual- malware.. that would otherwise get blocked by UAC
But reports are sketchy, so that above *may* be incorrect.
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Protect people? Where on earth did you get that idea?
As far as I can see, UAC is all about protecting *Microsoft*. They've just shifted the responsibility for a whole class of security exploits to the end user:
"Infected by a virus? Oh dear, you must have clicked 'accept' at some point, not our fault."
"What do you mean you have to click 'accept' for everything?"
If they were serious about security they wouldn't have buried things like Winternals Protection Manager. That had the potential to really improve
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Note that most distributions don't enable sudo for the user account per default (not even Ubuntu's parent distro, Debian), it would be interesting what the Ubuntu folks would say if you suggested turning off sudo per default.
Then users will need to know their administrator password, and will end up using it as an account.
Sudo prevents a certain large segment of the potential Ubuntu population from being retarded. It's a calculated risk, but I don't think they would change their position. It is not one they arrived at by chance.
Re:Microsoft already replied (Score:5, Interesting)
I kind of agree with the less-is-more approach to end user interactions. I get a lot of clients who have learned to cope with the modern click-prompt overload by simply clicking somewhat randomly on everything that comes up in front of them. Frequently, this leads to disabling some vitally important part of their computer in a way that any person who actually read prompts would have easily avoided.
Sadly, the less computer savvy you are, the more likely you are to be constantly deluged with upgrade prompts from Adobe, install requests for Safari from Apple, and the multitude of prompts when Hewlett Packard's genuinely awful drivers crash. Prompts to continue subscriptions to Symantec, upgrade to the latest acrobat, log in to windows messenger, etc. And, of course, each separate component has its own prompts. "Click here to upgrade. I see you've clicked here to upgrade, would you like me to go to the internet and upgrade? Upgrade will begin when you click the OK button below. Upgrading... Upgrade has completed, click OK below to continue. Thank you for upgrading, please visit unintelligiblylongwebsite.com/pagenobodywilleverclickon.html to give us feedback on this process. Press Dismiss below to return to the installer. Thank you for returning to the installer. If you are satisfied with this interaction, press OK below."
90% of users have no idea what their computer is doing, or should be doing, under the hood. If they weren't already suffering from click-fatigue, they wouldn't be the right people to decide on technical issues anyway.
Obviously, it shouldn't be possible to disable UAC without actually getting a UAC prompt. But in general, UAC is an annoying system that most users completely tune out. Instead of hightening user knowledge, it simply drowns out any real issues.
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Adobe Acrobat is the stupidest in their upgrade regime... it's a non-vital component, but after it updates itself: "You have to restart your computer in order to complete the updates. Restart now? Yes/No".
F*** you, if you were the kernel I'd understand.. you're just a viewer for an overused document format ffs!
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HP's popups are also on Macintosh. I have not figured out how to log in and not have it pop up a "configure your networked printers" dialog. Oh well, I learned you can cancel it and keep going (and the HP printer+scanner works fine!).
Re:Microsoft already replied (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem with UAC. Too many prompts and users will just get frustrated and either disable it or blindly hit Ok.
I disagree. I used Vista exclusively for 5 months, and I only ever got a UAC question when I was trying to change some system settings, and that one time when I didn't, it turned out to be a trojan.
It's not that hard to anticipate a UAC question, really. Just ask yourself: "Would Linux require root for this?"
Actually, UAC is much more permissive.
And the people who get frustrated with it, shouldn't have admin rights in the first place.
Sure, the initial setup and configuration is packed with these, but it's worth it.
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UAC is horrible.
Please, it's not just sudo, it's heap of other crap too. It's "I stopped these things from being launched at startup and there's no way to override this behaviour".
It's "I'm silently going to re-route any writes to the C:\Program Files\X directory to a virtual subdirectory under the user account, so that users can see different versions of files when looking in the same place".
It's a lot of annoying, unnecessary and unchangeable crap. That's why I switched it off anyway.
YMMV, you may not wan
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Please, it's not just sudo, it's heap of other crap too. It's "I stopped these things from being launched at startup and there's no way to override this behaviour".
Your application is trying to be launched at startup in an fishy way. For some reason, my apps are not. HMM.
It's "I'm silently going to re-route any writes to the C:\Program Files\X directory to a virtual subdirectory under the user account, so that users can see different versions of files when looking in the same place".
There's no good reason for writing there, and doing so is exactly what messed up "running as an administrator" in XP and below. Ask the author of your application to make it less retarded.
It's a lot of annoying, unnecessary and unchangeable crap. That's why I switched it off anyway.
Is it? I've seen many, many ways to reduce or even eliminate the warnings, even without turning of UAC. It's almost like you're being proud of being an idiot.
YMMV, you may not want an ext2 driver (not MS signed/approved!) launched at system startup, and you may not ever want to edit any configuration files stored in program files (or never launch processes as another user) but I consider those pretty important.
Yes, I'd prefer that they would install like normal driver
Re:Microsoft already replied (Score:4, Interesting)
"Your application is trying to be launched at startup in an fishy way. For some reason, my apps are not. HMM."
No, my application is not signed or recognised by MS, who believe they should have the final say over these things. A nice little box pops up saying "your system administrator has set policies to stop these things running at startup" and allowing you to click on them to start them up.
*I* am the system administrator and there was no way I could find to stop this behaviour, despite looking in all the UAC dialogs.
"There's no good reason for writing there,"
Says who? Why is it wrong to keep configuration files, which are changed very infrequently, in with the program? And if you feel that strongly, why not actually stop me writing there instead of mapping it somewhere else without telling me? At the moment, if I alter a file for (say) a service, I get no warning and no indication of anything other than a successful write to the file, but whichever account the service runs as sees something different. Unacceptable behaviour.
"doing so is exactly what messed up "running as an administrator" in XP"
No, what messed up "running as administrator" was "running as administrator". I don't need to write to program files to fuck up your system, if anything you run has admin privileges.
"Is it? I've seen many, many ways to reduce or even eliminate the warnings, even without turning of UAC."
Where did I complain about warnings?
I don't give a crap about warnings.
"It's almost like you're being proud of being an idiot."
And it's almost like you can't read.
"if you're still on 32bit Windows, this is not even a problem."
This is all on Vista 32 bit.
But it kinda confirms my thought that you were running vague software written by Linux people for Windows.
And what *exactly* do you mean by that? WTF is wrong with software not written by a company big enough to pay MS to get things signed? Shouldn't I, as an educated power user, be able to decide to run what I want?
Why shouldn't I have the flexibility to run windows with the UAC security turned on (so I get warned about unautorised system changges), but be able to add startup exceptions of my choosing?
It's a clusterfuck, it's a bad hack which fails to leave any room for flexibility, whilst at the same time implementing dodgy compromises in the name of backward compatibility.
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"There's no good reason for writing there,"
Says who? Why is it wrong to keep configuration files, which are changed very infrequently, in with the program? And if you feel that strongly, why not actually stop me writing there instead of mapping it somewhere else without telling me? At the moment, if I alter a file for (say) a service, I get no warning and no indication of anything other than a successful write to the file, but whichever account the service runs as sees something different. Unacceptable behaviour.
Um, isn't that exactly what happens in OS X with Preferences?
In OS X (and *NIX???), USER preferences are stored in the USER's "Home" directory. That way, permissions to write the "Applications" directory can be more tightly controlled, AND the USER can be granted permission to write in a relatively safe place (safe "system-wise", that is).
Far be it for me to laud anything MacroSuck does; but, to me, this "symlink" just appears to be MS's attempt to provide a modicum of security for system and applic
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"not breaking backward compatibility for every-single-bullshit-written-app that required Admin privileges just because the DEVELOPER was TOO LAZY to put USER settings in the PER USER "Documents and Settings" Directory(ies),"
Who said ANYTHING about user settings?
You know MS push their OS's for corporate and server use, right? And that they've got this UAC bullshit in 2k8 as well?
and instead wanted to spray files all over the SYSTEM and APPLICATION directories (which are NOT USER-SPECIFIC, of course).
Which is
Re:Microsoft already replied (Score:4, Insightful)
It took me 5 seconds to google some docs for user profile paths: User Data and Settings Management [microsoft.com]
Instead, the roaming stuff goes into:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
And the non-roaming stuff goes into
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
Doesn't seem so awful.
Copy the user profile over?
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Unix and Linux are thankfully spared a lot of this.
*nix has a well thought-out multi-user structure.
In Windows it was bolted on a basically single-user design originating with DOS. They try to do it right, but they can't break everything when backwards compatibility is all that keeps their empire from falling apart.
Remember the Windows 98 home directory? Me neither. Noone used it except Microsoft.
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but almost no game worked correctly
This is usually caused by DRM and/or anti-cheat software used by the game.
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And a beta's a beta.
That's why they make disclaimers.
Mechanical Analog (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mechanical Analog (Score:5, Funny)
the worst car analogy I've seen on slashdot for a while.
Re:Mechanical Analog (Score:5, Funny)
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(from GGP)
So, basically, what they did was build a big sturdy door (UAC) and put the treasure (system settings) behind it. Normally you need magic keys (certificates) to enter the door. Then, they built a button that unlocks the door from the outside. Wow!
the worst car analogy I've seen on slashdot for a while.
It's so bad a car analogy, that it doesn't even have cars.
I prefer to think of that as a chastity belt analogy. Put in that light, I think it's a great design!
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You must be new here, that IS a proper car analogy on slashdot.
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So, basically, what they did was build a big sturdy door (UAC) and put the treasure (system settings) behind it. Normally you need magic keys (certificates) to enter the door. Then, they built a button that unlocks the door from the outside. Wow!
Nah.. it's the new Microsoft advertising slogan.. "Windows without walls"
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But then there's nothing to hold the windows up! ... wait while I call Jay Leno for putting this in his "Truth in Labeling" part of the show
Early (Score:2, Insightful)
Beta != fundamental testing (Score:2)
While betas do help with testing, they're certainly not for such fundamental security testing. If they couldn't prove with hard math that their root access was limited properly, they should at least have had a bunch of unit tests for every variation from the tried and tested unix sudo model.
Fix it FFS. (Score:2, Interesting)
re. MS's 'By Design' / 'Won't Fix' response, they basically say - 'This doesn't matter as if this happens you are already infected'.
You need the damn UAC setting prompt so you are ALERTED TO THE FACT THAT THIS HAS HAPPENED SOMEHOW ASAP.
Yes the user may have done something stupid to allow infection, but the UAC setting prompt would then protect them from further damage even before the malicious code check package was updated to find whatever was out there infecting systems.
The Highest UAC setting would preve
How hard is it to copy something... (Score:5, Insightful)
correctly.
I mean, Linux and MacOSX (and others) have sudo for years, the original code dating back to 1980 according to Wikipedia.
The concept is not new : type your password to gain access to some privileges. That way bots and virus can't do everything while you can still administrative tasks easily.
My question is how hard is it to copy some 25 years old functionality (marketing it as brand new) and still don't get it right.
whoa, recursive Meta-UAC (Score:5, Funny)
==============
"It look like you're trying to alter the UAC settings, Cancel or Allow?"
*click*
"It looks like you've confirmed the change in UAC settings, Cancel or Allow?"
*click*
"The UAC settings have been altered, Cancel or Allow?"
*click**click**click**click**click*-----INPUT DEVICE FAILURE
It's a double-edged sword (Score:4, Insightful)
With Vista, there's no (official, at least) way to disable UAC except by a user actively going to Control Panel and disabling it.
This breaks a lot of things - particularly a lot of stuff concerning scripted/automated installers.
The obvious solution to this is to provide a way for a script to disable and enable UAC. But as soon as you do that, a lot of the protection offered by UAC disappears.
Re:It's a double-edged sword (Score:4, Insightful)
Fixed.
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I still think it would be a better way to teach the user about security than to prompt him messages he/she does not understand anyway.
How about including a security and basic computer usage tutorial in the OS? Put in some p
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Put in some porn and computer security will rise at once!
Ah, so you call him "Computer Security", do you ?
Kinky !
Pointless. (Score:3, Interesting)
UAC (Score:5, Funny)
all this talk of UAC makes me feel like playing some doom again.
Security in UAC (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest security hole in Windows 7's UAC is the user.
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The biggest hole in ANY system is the user. Not particularly a Windows 7 user..
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Well we've got to get rid of that guy then!
Actually, I disagree. Requiring the user to click "I agree" isn't security, it's nagging. A judge might agree that the user's responsible for whatever if he clicks "I agree," but I am less forgiving. If a botnet is trying to take over the system and the only thing standing in the way is a dialog box, then security has already failed.
Long Zheng seems like a nice bloke (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually... I doubt I'd call him nice since... well, I'll quote a small excerpt from the link:
First, I was originally going to blackmail Microsoft for a large ransom for the details of this flaw, but in these uncertain economic times, their ransom fund has probably been cut back so I'm just going to share this for free.
Let's see what other people think of him now...
Watchmen (Score:3, Funny)
But... Who controls the user acces to the user access control?
"A prolific blogger ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
This is no different to me browsing the web as root in linux and running any shit that pops up
Anonymous submitters (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if Slashdot should allow anonymous article submissions? Isn't it useful information to know if the submitter is also the subject of the article or its reference source? Shouldn't we be allowed to know that, so we can better judge the credibility of the article and its source(s)? Transparency is ALWAYS good.
What if the anonymous reader who submitted this was Roland P.? Wouldn't we wanna know that?
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I'm sure his widow certainly would.
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See, I would, too! A dead guy submitting articles would be actual news. We might have to question the articles a bit more, too.
Re:Anonymous submitters (Score:5, Informative)
What if the anonymous reader who submitted this was Roland P.? Wouldn't we wanna know that?
That would certainly be something [slashdot.org].
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(I knew he was dead... I was making a point with humor.)
Re:Anonymous submitters (Score:4, Funny)
What if the anonymous reader who submitted this was Roland P.? Wouldn't we wanna know that?
Yeah, I sure as hell would want to know that [slashdot.org]!
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If two stories are submitted on the same subject, one with an anonymous submitter and one without, then they should use the non-anonymous one. This I can agree with; as you say, transparency is
Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like an odd bit of "by design".
Unless i'm mistaken, I (as a user) could download an application and run it on the mistaken assumption that my UAC settings would alert me if anything suspicious is going to happen.
The application could then drop my security level to the lowest possible (without me knowing) and then start silently installing a bunch of other stuff with no UAC prompts. If it was particulary careful, it could then reset the UAC level back to the what it was before it started.
I'm now completely compromised without the slightest indication that anything suspicious happened.
Heh (Score:2)
Why does Windows make such a meal of user security (Score:2)
I don't use Windows much so perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but why is it so hard for MS to implement this sort of system? Unix has managed it with root, groups since the 70s and with ACLs, su, sudo etc since the 80s so why can't MS manage to get right something so simple and so fundamental to a multi user OS in 2009?? And why would you need it much anyway? If you're simply installing an app (as opposed to an OS/library update) why would you need administrator/root type access anyway?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
UAC mimics much of the functionality present in a lot of Linux applications. You need root to install the application, but you don't need root to launch the application.
At least, this is exactly how Microsoft has it designed. And anything that requires administrative privileges should have a service that starts as admin/root and then the client side process should be low privileged.
This is exactly how Microsoft has it setup. The problem is that a lot of application developers are lazy. They don't want
UAC is a stupid idea (Score:3, Insightful)
If you look at the computer as a whole, it is incredibly stupid that after the user selects some option, the computer will pop up a dialog asking the user if he is indeed the one who selected this option.
I realize the series of historic accidents that led to this absurd situation - but couldn't they figure out a better way that does not make the computer behave so incredibly stupidly?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is there is in Windows no difference between an interactive task and an interactive task that presents no interface, this means that UAC has to prompt for the very very obvious like "did you really press the button marked install" because it has no idea if the user did something or it was done for them ...
Because Microsoft does not have a proper installer interface that installs programs for you.. instead each program has it's own installer/updater Windows has no control over the process and doe
Bugs in Beta? (Score:3, Insightful)
UAC isn't "security" (Score:5, Interesting)
UAC is a hack to deal with the problem that the Win32 API is full of inherent security holes that would require changing lots third-party software to fix. So they put a prompt up if a program is about to use one of the features that contain or implement part of one of these security holes.
The only real way to fix it is to implement a designed-for-security API and designate Win32 and everything based on it "legacy", only run in a sandbox.
Which is what Windows 7 was rumored to be, a couple years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
At some point this tripe gets ridiculous, particularly when Vista has been out there for over 2 years now. The Win32 API has its flaws, but security issues are due to problems with the underlying OS, not the API.
If there are security flaws in the Win32 API as implemented by Vista, please by all means point them out. But I'm going to be surprised if you can point out anything that doesn't fall under "It's a system level change, you need admin credentials moron" school of thought. Most people don't understand
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since everything in the OS is exposed via the Win32 API... you can't even see the NT kernel API unless you're someone like Softway Systems... the difference is academic. So is "it's a system level change", when it's a system level change that thousands of applications (for many of which the source is no longer available) depend on.
"There are APIs in Windows that applications have been written to use, that should not be exposed to untrusted applications. These APIs can not be blocked without breaking too man
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Should the user not be free to run software as they please then? Because there are plenty of complaints just in this article that are people bitching about just that - how Vista is somehow preventing them from doing what they want. Should "untrusted applications" be everything other than a select few applications that only Microsoft gets to define?
And if not, how should users tell the OS that an application is trusted? Perhaps they could indicate that in some kind of dialog box...
At the end of the day the u
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