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    Home Cybersecurity
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    Holiday Attacks Target IE Browser, PHP Servers

    By
    Larry Seltzer
    -
    December 26, 2004
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      Malware authors on Christmas day left dubious “gift” packages in e-mailboxes across the Internet. Fresh attacks, which took advantage of old Internet Explorer bugs, as well as new versions of the Santy worm fouled the holidays for some Windows users and PHP server admins.

      A posting on the Full Disclosure mailing list described a new attack that can proceed without user intervention. Called “Microsoft Internet Explorer Full Remote Compromise w/o User Intervention,” the exploit is based on old vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer in Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2).

      The provided analysis of the attack mentions two targets in SP2: the Help ActiveX control related topics zone security bypass vulnerability and the Help ActiveX control related topics cross site scripting vulnerability.

      The attack is described in detail and results in an arbitrary file being placed in the users startup folder where it will be when the user restarts the system. According to the analysis, the attack does not lend itself to inclusion in a worm, but could be effectively used by spyware or adware to compromise a system.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifThree other Windows vulnerabilities also surfaced over the holiday weekend. Click here to read more.

      According to the post, the exploit was released by Michael Evanchik and Paul from Greyhats Security, to spur Microsoft Corp. to secure Windows and the Internet Explorer browser more quickly. The message from Paul, suggested Windows users switch to the Mozilla projects FireFox browser to improve security.

      “Microsoft was able to reproduce the issue and has agreed that the severity is indeed critical. Because the vulnerabilities (3 in total, each based on different technologies) have been known and unpatched for quite some time, we have decided to release the information on this exploit in hopes that in the future Microsoft will work faster towards patching vulnerabilities that we security researchers disclose to them,” the posting said.

      Microsoft was unavailable for comment.

      Meanwhile, as the Santy.A worm attack from last week is subsiding, security researchers warned that the next generation of the worm is riding on America Online and Yahoo Inc. search services. The earlier version used the Google Inc. search engine. Santy.B finds phpBB-based servers to attack by searching for “viewtopic.php” and “using the AOL or Yahoo search engine to generate a list of possible infection targets,” Symantec Corp. analysts said.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifRead more here about the Santy Worm.

      Santy.B exploits the same server-side vulnerability as Version A—PHPBB Remote URLDecode Input Validation Vulnerability. The worm overwrites all .htm, .php, .asp, .shtm, .jsp, and .phtm files with a defacement message.

      Security alerts urged administrators to upgrade to phpBB Version 2.0.11, which fixes the vulnerability. However, one post to the Bugtraq security mailing list warned that Version 2.0.11 is also affected.

      The new versions appear to be more versatile and deadly than Santy.A, security insiders observed. Early reports on e-mail lists said that Santy.B installs a backdoor server and a remote control IRC tool on affected machines. The exploit may not be limited to phpBB sites but may also attack other PHP sites with a general script-injection technique.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest security news, reviews and analysis. And for insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzers Weblog.

      Larry Seltzer
      Larry Seltzer has been writing software for and English about computers ever since—,much to his own amazement—,he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.He was one of the authors of NPL and NPL-R, fourth-generation languages for microcomputers by the now-defunct DeskTop Software Corporation. (Larry is sad to find absolutely no hits on any of these +products on Google.) His work at Desktop Software included programming the UCSD p-System, a virtual machine-based operating system with portable binaries that pre-dated Java by more than 10 years.For several years, he wrote corporate software for Mathematica Policy Research (they're still in business!) and Chase Econometrics (not so lucky) before being forcibly thrown into the consulting market. He bummed around the Philadelphia consulting and contract-programming scenes for a year or two before taking a job at NSTL (National Software Testing Labs) developing product tests and managing contract testing for the computer industry, governments and publication.In 1991 Larry moved to Massachusetts to become Technical Director of PC Week Labs (now eWeek Labs). He moved within Ziff Davis to New York in 1994 to run testing at Windows Sources. In 1995, he became Technical Director for Internet product testing at PC Magazine and stayed there till 1998.Since then, he has been writing for numerous other publications, including Fortune Small Business, Windows 2000 Magazine (now Windows and .NET Magazine), ZDNet and Sam Whitmore's Media Survey.

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