Controlling ActiveX Controls
FYI...
Controlling ActiveX Controls
- http://www.securityfocus.com/blogs/671
2008-03-13 - "...here are some quick thoughts on why browser accessible ActiveX controls are so frustrating:
1. ActiveX controls aren’t (usually) tied to the websites that installed them.
Meaning, any website can instantiate one and communicate with it. And by communicate with it, I mean perform memory corruption attacks that lead to remote code execution.
2. They are often written poorly.
Even more poorly than most 3rd party software. Overflows, arbitrary file access, you name it. You could probably find an ActiveX control that is actually vulnerable to every bug class.
3. They persist (and can be difficult to remove)...
After they get installed, you forget about it. Forever. Long after you have even logged into the website that convinced you to install it. Just waiting for someone to take advantage of issues 1 and 2 to make you part of their botnet.
4. They can be difficult to update.
Unlike a lot of software, ActiveX controls rarely have auto-update functionality. As a result, most people that are vulnerable, stay that way.
5. They are rarely necessary.
The worst part is, ActiveX controls are often add-ons that no one really needed and wouldn’t miss if they disappeared. A lot of times that I have seen them used, they were mostly there to make a UI feel more Win32 and less webby. The risk to benefit ratio has rarely been worth it..."
:fear:
Ongoing mass SQL-injection attacks...
FYI...
- http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/thr...earnabout.html
(03.20.2008) - "...DeepSight Threat Analyst Team is currently monitoring a number of ongoing mass SQL-injection attacks that are manipulating victim servers to host malicious content to browsing clients... Clients are advised to browse using strict security policies. The following list of strategies may prevent or hamper an attack:
- Run browser software with the least privileges possible.
- Disable JavaScript, IFRAMEs, and ActiveX controls.
- Enable OS security mechanisms such as Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
- Ensure that browsing software is up to date.
- Filter all web activity through security products such as an Intrusion Prevention system."
:fear:
Drive-by-downloads now the primary threat from hacks
FYI...
- http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001408.html
March 31, 2008 - "...Nowadays sending .EXE attachments in e-mail doesn't work so well for the criminals because almost every company and organization is filtering out such risky attachments from their e-mail traffic. The criminals’ new preferred way of spreading malware is by drive-by downloads on the Web. These attacks often still start with an e-mail spam run but the attachment in the e-mail has been replaced by a web link, which takes you to the malicious web site. So instead of getting infected over SMTP, you get infected over HTTP. Infection by a drive-by download can happen automatically just by visiting a web site, unless you have a fully patched operating system, browser and browser plug-ins. Unfortunately, most people have some vulnerabilities in their systems. Infection can also take place when you are fooled into manually clicking on a download and running a program from the web page that contains the malware. There are several methods criminals use to gather traffic to these websites.
- A common approach is to launch an e-mail spam campaign containing messages that tempt people to click on a link...
- Another method used by criminals is to create many web pages with thousands of different keywords which are indexed by Google, and then simply wait for people to visit these sites...
- The third method of distributing malware involves the criminals hacking into existing high profile, high traffic web sites. Unlike the joke defacements that some hackers played on the front pages of prominent web sites in the past, today’s criminal hackers don’t change the front page at all. They simply insert a line of javascript on the front page which uses an exploit to infect your machine when you go there... This has happened to the web sites of some popular magazines which can have a million users every single day...
- Another vector for drive-by downloads are infiltrated ad networks. We are seeing more and more advertising displayed on high-profile websites. By infiltrating the ad networks, the criminals don’t have to hack a site but their exploit code will still be shown to millions of users, often without the knowledge of the webmaster of those sites.
It is important to be aware of this shift from SMTP to HTTP infections, which can be exploited by the criminals in many ways. Companies often measure their risk of getting infected by looking at the amount of stopped attachments at their e-mail gateway. Those numbers are definitely going down, but the actual risk of getting infected probably isn't. Individuals and companies should therefore be scanning their web traffic for malware – as well as filtering their FTP traffic. In parallel to the switch from SMTP to HTTP as a way of spreading malware, we are now also seeing more and more malicious e-mails that link to malware via FTP links..."
:fear::spider::fear:
-Mebroot- Spreading through High-Traffic, Compromised Web Sites
FYI...
- http://preview.tinyurl.com/yrxcym
April 2, 2008 (Symantec Security Response Weblog) - "Symantec is tracking more and more high-traffic Web sites that become compromised and then used to spread malicious code. After the breach our MSS team spotted out on Tata*, we have been notified of another Web site with a similar issue. Today the Italian Web site www .emule-italia .it had been compromised and was hosting an obfuscated script... The script, when deobfuscated, was showing an -iframe- pointing to http ://[REMOVED]xes.com/ld/grb, which was redirecting users to a server (http ://[REMOVED]fir.com/cgi-bin/mail.cgi?p=grobin) hosting the Neosploit tool. Neosploit is forcing vulnerable PCs to download and install the latest version of the infamous Trojan.Mebroot. Symantec notified the ISP involved about this issue and the ISP has since worked to remove the malicious content from the affected Web site. High-traffic Web sites are becoming more and more targeted, because the huge number of visits they receive turns into a huge number of machines getting compromised in a short period of time. Therefore, application security is even more important for these sites:
- periodic penetration testing,
- code review, and
- sound application security practices
...in the overall development lifecycle can protect site owners [and visitors, too!] from these kind of threats."
* http://preview.tinyurl.com/yqhseh
(Symantec Security Response Weblog - February 28, 2008)
:fear::fear: