Microsoft announced last December 15 of yet another major flaw in version 7 of its Internet Explorer browser which allows remote code execution on the target computer (as if the others do not already).

Dubbed as Microsoft Security Advisory (961051), the advisory went on to discuss the issue as follows:

The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference in the data binding function of Internet Explorer. When data binding is enabled (which is the default state), it is possible under certain conditions for an object to be released without updating the array length, leaving the potential to access the deleted object’s memory space. This can cause Internet Explorer to exit unexpectedly, in a state that is exploitable.

It appears also that its not only IE7 that’s affected. It affects versions up to IE8 also. Even the BBC has snatched this issue as well.

What was weird for me was that the Full Disclosure community did not make any reaction to this disclosure by Microsoft. Or it might be too early as the secinfo experts and enthusiasts are scrambling to verify this if at all.

My take on this is - what’s new? Honestly, I’m not surprised at all.

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This is the first time that I’m going to be posting an article about the DNS issue found by Dan Kaminsky came about. Not because of the severity of this problem, nor is it about how prolific Kaminsky and his skills about hacking is. This post is about how fast something develops within the Internet.

The DNS problem found by Kaminsky, and featured all over the web caused tremendous concern among a lot of security experts, and administrators. Read more to get an idea about DNS and what it does.

In just 2 days since Halvar Flake posted his “speculation” on how Dan Kaminsky can perform a massively successful DNS cache poisoning attack, CaughQ’s Druid and Metasploit’s HD Moore joined efforts in delivering what appears to be the first exploit code specifically targetted at Dan Kaminsky’s DNS bug which Dan happened to be trying to keep hush-hush since its discovery.

The exploit was released and announced at Full Disclosure today at around 3AM local time (11AM Manila Time). Here’s a portion of the mail header for the sent time.

Received: from cpe-24-28-73-141.austin.res.rr.com (HELO ?10.3.3.33?)
(druid@24.28.73.141)
by mail.caughq.org with SMTP; 24 Jul 2008 03:08:35 -0000

Druid and HDMoore’s exploit code, coded on Ruby, appeared to have taken details from Halvar Flake’s “speculation” to implement the attack. Although a lot of people believed that Halvar Flake’s speculation may have been a little off, but it appeared that Halvar may have almost nailed it on the head thus prompting CaughQ and Metasploit to take a look, thus arriving at the latest exploit code.

Disclosure header received at Full Disclosure:


____ ____ __ __
/ \ / \ | | | |
----====####/ /\__\##/ /\ \##| |##| |####====----
| | | |__| | | | | |
| | ___ | __ | | | | |
------======######\ \/ /#| |##| |#| |##| |######======------
\____/ |__| |__| \______/

Computer Academic Underground
http://www.caughq.org
Exploit Code

===============/========================================================
Exploit ID: CAU-EX-2008-0003
Release Date: 2008.07.23
Title: bailiwicked_domain.rb
Description: Kaminsky DNS Cache Poisoning Flaw Exploit for Domains
Tested: BIND 9.4.1-9.4.2
Attributes: Remote, Poison, Resolver, Metasploit
Exploit URL: ------ removed -------
Author/Email: I)ruid
H D Moore
===============/========================================================

Description
===========

This exploit targets a fairly ubiquitous flaw in DNS implementations
which allow the insertion of malicious DNS records into the cache of the
target nameserver. This exploit caches a single malicious nameserver
entry into the target nameserver which replaces the legitimate
nameservers for the target domain. By causing the target nameserver to
query for random hostnames at the target domain, the attacker can spoof
a response to the target server including an answer for the query, an
authority server record, and an additional record for that server,
causing target nameserver to insert the additional record into the
cache. This insertion completely replaces the original nameserver
records for the target domain.

Quoting Dan Kaminsky, “the cat is out of the bag.” Sorry Dan, I don’t think you can stop this now. And I think you know who to blame for this, that is if he/she/they/it can really be blamed?

The rate/speed of development is just truly amazing. The extent?

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Many of us who happen to spend a huge amount of our time on the internet do so and rely on our browsers. We rely on our browsers for virtually anything we do on the internet. From communications, to research, to purchasing anything, and just about any service that is available off the internet.

To keep our browsers up to date with fixes and patches, we follow a distinct routine of updating our browsers as soon as patches and fixes become available.

However, Polish hacker Michal Zalewski released another set of flaws for patched Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers.

The published flaws are not pretty. And these flaws are not good for users unless the publicized flaws will be corrected in the browsers themselves.

Zalewski announced the flaws at Full-Disclosure

I have tried his simple online demos of the exploits and could now see that a lot of these malicious coders will try to incorporate these exploits into their arsenal. Add to that the viral and nuisance “marketing” sites will be using techniques derived from these revelations from Zalewski.

It wont be long, I’ll be disabling JavaScript support should this remain unfixed in upcoming browser releases. Or perhaps, I’ll go Opera provided it will not be running under IE mode or Firefox mode.

Firefox, Internet Explorer, browser, security, flaw, hack
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Hidden-code flaw in Windows renews worries over stealthly malware
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2005-08-31

A flaw in the way that several security programs and systems utilities detect system changes could allow spyware to spread surreptitiously and have renewed worries about stealthier attack code.

“ Even though bots are often used for spyware, adware or other financially motivated activity, they are programmed as if they were just general-purpose utilities–for some reason they almost always go with the tried-and-true ‘Run’ registry key. â€�

Joe Stewart, senior researcher, Lurhq

Last week, the Internet Storm Center, a group of security professionals that track threats on the Net, flagged a flaw in how a common Microsoft Windows utility and several anti-spyware utilities detect system changes made by malicious software. By using long names for registry keys, spyware programs could, in a simple way, hide from such utilities yet still force the system to run the malicious program every time the compromised computer starts up.

Already, some spyware authors seem to be playing with the rudimentary technique to try and hide their programs, said Tom Liston, a handler for the Internet Storm Center and a network security consultant for Intelguardians.

“We have seen indications that someone is trying this technique out,” Liston said. “Basically, we have seen code that is stuffing a key in the registry with a huge length. Yet, the author still doesn’t have it working.”

A Microsoft representative said that the company is investigating the report, but does not consider the problem an operating system flaw.
full story at SecurityFocus