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Poisoned Websites Staying Contaminated Longer




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Data Breaches Cost $6.6 Million On Average, Survey Finds




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Survey Reveals Culture Of IT Admin Snooping




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Sysadmin Stole Co-Worker IDs For Amazon Survey Splurge








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Microsoft IIS ISAPI FrontPage fp30reg.dll Chunked Overflow

This is an exploit for the chunked encoding buffer overflow described in MS03-051 and originally reported by Brett Moore. This particular modules works against versions of Windows 2000 between SP0 and SP3. Service Pack 4 fixes the issue.




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Microsoft Workstation Service NetpManageIPCConnect Overflow

This Metasploit module exploits a stack overflow in the NetApi32 NetpManageIPCConnect function using the Workstation service in Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP SP2. In order to exploit this vulnerability, you must specify a the name of a valid Windows DOMAIN. It may be possible to satisfy this condition by using a custom dns and ldap setup, however that method is not covered here. Although Windows XP SP2 is vulnerable, Microsoft reports that Administrator credentials are required to reach the vulnerable code. Windows XP SP1 only requires valid user credentials. Also, testing shows that a machine already joined to a domain is not exploitable.




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Microsoft IIS ISAPI FrontPage fp30reg.dll Chunked Overflow

This is an exploit for the chunked encoding buffer overflow described in MS03-051 and originally reported by Brett Moore. This particular modules works against versions of Windows 2000 between SP0 and SP3. Service Pack 4 fixes the issue.




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Microsoft SMB Server Zero Size Pool Allocation

A vulnerability in the Windows kernel can be triggered via SMB in Microsoft Windows versions ranging from Windows 2000 through to Windows 7. This vulnerability allows an attacker to trigger a kernel pool corruption by sending a specially crafted SMB_COM_TRANSACTION2 request. Successful exploitation of this issue may result in remote code execution with kernel privileges, while failed attempts will result in a denial of service condition.




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Microsoft DHCP INFORM Configuration Overwrite

A vulnerability in Windows DHCP was found on Windows OS versions ranging from Windows 2000 through to Windows server 2003. This vulnerability allows an attacker to remotely overwrite DNS, Gateway, IP Addresses, routing, WINS server, WPAD, and server configuration with no user interaction. Successful exploitation of this issue will result in a remote network configuration overwrite. Microsoft acknowledged the issue but has indicated no plans to publish a patch to resolve it.






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Worminator-bin.tgz

A Win32 tool for easing/automating the process of creating IDS/IPS signatures for SMTP based worms, providing a comfortable GUI, including raw base64 variants and Snort signatures support. This tarball is the binary executable version.




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Worminator-src.tgz

A Win32 tool for easing/automating the process of creating IDS/IPS signatures for SMTP based worms, providing a comfortable GUI, including raw base64 variants and Snort signatures support. This tarball is the source version.







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Book Review: 'The Tangled Web' By Michal Zalewski

No Starch Press: $49.95

If you are a security engineer, a researcher, a hacker or just someone who keeps your ear to the ground when it comes to computer security, chances are you have seen the name Michal Zalewski. He has been responsible for an abundance of tools, research, proof of concepts and helpful insight to many over the years. He recently released a book called "The Tangled Web - A Guide To Securing Modern Web Applications".

Normally, when I read books about securing web applications, I find many parallels where authors will give an initial lay of the land, dictating what technologies they will address, what programming languages they will encompass and a decent amount of detail on vulnerabilities that exist along with some remediation tactics. Such books are invaluable for people in this line of work, but there is a bigger picture that needs to be addressed and it includes quite a bit of secret knowledge rarely divulged in the security community. You hear it in passing conversation over beers with colleagues or discover it through random tests on your own. But rarely are the oddities documented anywhere in a thorough manner.

Before we go any further, let us take a step back in time. Well over a decade ago, the web was still in its infancy and an amusing vulnerability known as the phf exploit surfaced. It was nothing more than a simple input validation bug that resulted in arbitrary code execution. The average hacker enjoyed this (and many more bugs like it) during this golden age. At the time, developers of web applications had a hard enough time getting their code to work and rarely took security implications into account. Years later, cross site scripting was discovered and there was much debate about whether or not a cross site scripting vulnerability was that important. After all, it was an issue that restricted itself to the web ecosystem and did not give us a shell on the server. Rhetoric on mailing lists mocked such findings and we (Packet Storm) received many emails saying that by archiving these issues we were degrading the quality of the site. But as the web evolved, people starting banking online, their credit records were online and before you knew it, people were checking their social network updates on their phone every five minutes. All of a sudden, something as small as a cross site scripting vulnerability mattered greatly.

To make the situation worse, many programs were developed to support web-related technologies. In the corporate world, being first to market or putting out a new feature in a timely fashion trumphs security. Backwards compatibility that feeds poor design became a must for any of the larger browser vendors. The "browser wars" began and everyone had different ideas on how to solve different issues. To say web-related technologies brought many levels of complexity to the modern computing experience is a great understatement. Browser-side programming languages, such as JavaScript, became a playground for hackers. Understanding the Document Object Model (DOM) and the implications of poorly coded applications became one of those lunch discussions that could cause you to put your face into your mashed potatoes. Enter "The Tangled Web".

This book puts some very complicated nuances in plain (enough) english. It starts out with Zalewski giving a brief synopsis of the security industry and the web. Breakdowns of the basics are provided and it is written in a way that is inviting for anyone to read. It goes on to cover a wide array of topics inclusive to the operation of browsers, the protocols involved, the various types of documents handled and the languages supported. Armed with this knowledge, the reader is enabled to tackle the next section detailing browser security features. As the author puts it, it covers "everything from the well-known but often misunderstood same-origin policy to the obscure and proprietary zone settings of Internet Explorer". Browsers, it ends up, have a ridiculous amount of odd dynamics for even the simplest acts. The last section wraps things up with upcoming security features and various browser mechanisms to note.

I found it a credit to the diversity of the book that technical discussion could also trail off to give historical notes on poor industry behavior. When it noted DNS hijacking by various providers it reminded me of the very distinct and constantly apparent disconnect between business and knowledge of technology. When noting how non-HTTP servers were being leveraged to commit cross site scripting attacks, Zalewski also made it a point to note how the Internet Explorer releases only have a handful of prohibited ports but all other browsers have dozens that they block. The delicate balance of understanding alongside context is vital when using information from this book and applying it to design.

Every page offers some bit of interesting knowledge that dives deep. It takes the time to note the odd behaviors small mistakes can cause and also points out where flawed security implementations exist. This book touches on the old and the new and many things other security books have overlooked. Another nice addition is that it provides security engineering cheatsheets at the end of each chapter. To be thorough, it explains both the initiatives set out by RFCs while it also documents different paths various browser vendors have taken in tackling tricky security issues. Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Apple's Safari and Opera are compared and contrasted greatly throughout this book.

In my opinion, the web has become a layer cake over the years. New shiny technologies and add-ons have been thrown into the user experience and with each of them comes a new set of security implications. One-off findings are constantly discovered and documented (and at Packet Storm we try to archive every one of them), but this is the first time I have seen a comprehensive guide that focuses on everything from cross-domain content inclusion to content-sniffing. It is the sort of book that should be required reading for every web developer.

 -Todd




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Opera Just Added A Bitcoin-Mining Blocker















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IBM OpenAdmin Tool SOAP welcomeServer PHP Code Execution

This Metasploit module exploits an unauthenticated remote PHP code execution vulnerability in IBM OpenAdmin Tool included with IBM Informix versions 11.5, 11.7, and 12.1. The 'welcomeServer' SOAP service does not properly validate user input in the 'new_home_page' parameter of the 'saveHomePage' method allowing arbitrary PHP code to be written to the config.php file. The config.php file is executed in most pages within the application, and accessible directly via the web root, resulting in code execution. This Metasploit module has been tested successfully on IBM OpenAdmin Tool 3.14 on Informix 12.10 Developer Edition (SUSE Linux 11) virtual appliance.




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Microsoft Cites BBC, Wikipedia In Error-Filled DMCA Takedown




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Libyan Rebels Are Flying Their Own Minidrone





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US Marine Unearths Nukes, Cocaine, And $25 Million




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Jamming Systems Play Secret Role In Iraq




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Special Forces Getting High-Tech Soldier Suits For Iraq Mission




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Wikileaks Releases Indiscriminate Slaying Video From Iraq