TechBlog

The WordPress developers have released version 3.4.1 of their popular open source publishing platform, fixing a number of bugs and closing security holes, one of which is rated as important. WordPress 3.4, which has already been downloaded 3 million times since being released two weeks ago, contains a important privilege escalation flaw that accidentally allowed all administrators and editors on multi-site installations to use unfiltered_html. This could have been exploited by users for cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks by, for example, publishing posts containing malicious code. ...

Google has closed a total of 23 vulnerabilities with the release of Chrome 20. Of those vulnerabilities, 14 are rated critical, enabling attackers to execute code in the browser’s sandbox, among other things. Integer overflow vulnerabilities in the code for processing PDF files and Matroska containers (.mkv) have also been fixed. Chrome 20 also includes the latest version of Adobe’s Flash Player on Linux, using the new cross-platform Pepper API. In testing at The H, it was confirmed that the Flash Player support also works on 64-bit Linux systems. ...

Microsoft has released an unscheduled, non-patch day update for Windows to update the Windows Update function itself. However, according to reports from readers, the Windows Update Agent update does not always run smoothly; The H’s associates at heise Security also ran into problems on their test systems. A staggered dissemination of the update has been taking place over the past three to four days. Users who run Windows Update are confronted with a message which says that an update for Windows Update needs to be installed before the system can check for other updates. ...

Adobe Reader X runs in a sandbox at a very restricted privilege level. Important system calls are supposed to be handled by a special broker process that will subject them to extensive testing. However, a small design flaw allows attackers to escape from this sandbox and execute arbitrary code – despite having both ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomisation) and DEP (Data Execution Prevention). As described by Guillaume Delugré, the broker process is at the heart of the exploit as it uses a memory page allocated via VirtualAllocEx to store the overwritten code of system calls which have been redirected to the broker. Despite having ASLR, however, the memory address returned by VirtualAllocEx is not randomised. This means that the Windows system function call will end up in a predictable, “nearly constant” location which the exploit can then access directly. ...

Adobe has released an updated version of its proprietary Flash Player 11.3 plugin to address a bug that caused Firefox 13 on Windows to crash for some users. The problem is believed to have been related to the recently introduced Protected Mode for the Windows version of Flash Player and the open source web browser; the new mode is designed to isolate the plugin from the rest of the system by running it in its own sandbox. ...

With the release of version 5.63 of Winamp, Nullsoft, a division of AOL Music, has eliminated four critical security vulnerabilities in the media player. Three of these were heap-based buffer overflows in Winamp’s bmp.w5s component that could have been exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a victim’s system. For an attack to be successful, a user must first open a specially crafted AVI file. It has been confirmed that the vulnerability affects version 5.622; other builds may also be affected. The update also addresses unspecified errors in the in_mod.dll module that could have been used to corrupt memory and could possibly result in arbitrary code being executed. Upgrading to Winamp 5.63, specifically build 3234 (5.6.3.3234), fixes these problems. ...

Norwegian company Opera Software has released Opera 12.00 just a few minutes ago. Opera users who start the browser on their system should see update notifications displayed to them in the next couple of hours. Those who do not want to wait that long can run a manual check for updates with a click on Opera > Help > Check for Updates. The update should then be picked up by the browser and downloaded automatically to the local system. ...

v3.co.uk: Card processing firm Global Payments has provided more detail on the attack on its computer systems earlier this year, warning that the attackers may have had access to unspecified personal data. Global Payments confirmed the attackers had access to details of 1.5 million cards, but it said the attack had now been contained. Global Payments also revealed the attacks had gained access to servers containing personal information “from a subset of US merchant applications”. While it could not ascertain whether the data had been copied, it would be notifying affected customers in the coming days. ...

Is this the perfect recipe for a cybercriminal ?: Hacking LinkedIn’s password (and possibly user-) database. Sending an email to all obtained email addresses, which is urging you to check your LinkedIn inbox as soon as possible. A user unawarely clicking on the link. An exploit gets loaded. Malware gets dropped. Malware gets executed. User’s computer is now a zombie (part of a botnet). I would definitely say YES. A reader of my blog contacted me today, he had received an email from LinkedIn which was looking phishy. We can verify that Step 1 is accomplished, by the simple fact that in the “To” and/or “CC” field of the email below, there are about ~100 email addresses. A quick look-up of a few of them on LinkedIn reveals the unconvenient truth… Here’s the email in question: ...

The H-Online: In response to the Flame worst-case scenario, Microsoft has now integrated a custom block list feature for its certificate store under Windows. The feature was deployed as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday. The Flame worm had spread via Windows Update feature by manipulating the certificates that were intended to protect Windows updates from tampering. As described in a Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog post, the latest modification automatically causes compromised certificates to be regarded as untrusted. To achieve this, the certificate store checks a Microsoft-maintained list on a daily basis for certificates that are no longer trustworthy. Certificate Authorities are required to inform the company of any revoked certificates, which will then be added to the list. According to a Windows PKI blog post, this method is considerably faster than the deployment of Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs). ...