Adobe Flash enables auto-updating while patching two critical flaws

SophosLabs: Adobe released Flash Player version 11.2.202.228 for Windows, OS X and Linux today. In my view this is a milestone release as it finally introduces an automatic, silent updating mechanism to help users stay current with the latest releases from here forward. Google Chrome users may consider themselves spoiled, as they have been enjoying the worry-free joy of automatic updating of both their browser and integrated plugins like Flash Player for quite some time. ...

March 29, 2012 Â· 1 min Â· 190 words Â· Omid Farhang

Report: iOS vulnerability sold for $250,000

The H-Security: Business appears to be booming for those who trade in unpatched (zero-day) security holes: according to a report by Forbes magazine, a US company that works for the US government recently paid $250,000 for a vulnerability in Apple’s iOS operating system. The report says that the deal was arranged by a hacker who goes by the name of “the Grugq” and who has brokered agreements between those who discover vulnerabilities and government agencies over the last year. If negotiations are successful, the hacker retains a 15 per cent commission; he’s reportedly on track to earn about a million US dollars this year with his brokerage business. ...

March 26, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 312 words Â· Omid Farhang

Chrome 17 update fixes high-risk vulnerabilities

The H-Security: Google has released version 17.0.963.83 of its Chrome web browser, a maintenance update that fixes issues with Flash games and closes several security holes. The Stable channel update addresses a total of nine vulnerabilities, six of which are rated as “high severity“. These include an integer issue in libpng (the official PNG reference library), a memory corruption problem in WebGL canvas handling and a cross-origin violation related to “magic iframe”, as well as use-after-free errors in first-letter handling, CSS cross-fade handling and block splitting. One medium-risk invalid read in the V8 JavaScript engine and two low-risk problems related to WebUI privileges and unpacked extension installation have also been fixed. ...

March 22, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 218 words Â· Omid Farhang

Firefox and Thunderbird updates to 10.0.2, Vulnerability in libpng

The H-Online: The Mozilla Project has released updates to Firefox and Thunderbird. According to the release notes, the version 10.0.2 updates to the open source web browser and the news and email client address a security vulnerability; however, at the time of writing, the project’s security pages provide no details of what has been fixed; these releases came soon after a Chrome update which closed 13 security holes and took the version number to 17.0.963.56. ...

February 17, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 219 words Â· Omid Farhang

Java SE updates fix critical security holes

The H-Online: Oracle has fixed 14 security holes in the Java Standard Edition (Java SE) with a critical patch update. The vulnerabilities allow attackers to use specially crafted Java WebStart applications or web services in order to install malicious code on computers that run flawed versions of Java. Oracle says that such flawed versions are particularly likely to exist on Windows computers because Windows users tend to have admin privileges. The risk is smaller under operating systems such as Linux and Solaris, the company added. ...

February 15, 2012 Â· 1 min Â· 203 words Â· Omid Farhang

63 Vulnerabilities on United Nation Website Exposed Online

The Hacker News: Latest Notification in The Hacker News Vault by a Hacker named “Xenu (Casi)” from r00tw0rm Team that There are 63 Blind SQL injection Vulnerabilities exist on United Nation’s Website (www.un.org). Blind SQL injection is identical to normal SQL Injection except that when an attacker attempts to exploit an application rather then getting a useful error message they get a generic page specified by the developer instead. This makes exploiting a potential SQL Injection attack more difficult but not impossible. An attacker can still steal data by asking a series of True and False questions through sql statements. ...

February 10, 2012 Â· 2 min Â· 233 words Â· Omid Farhang

RealPlayer update closes critical holes

The H-Online: RealNetworks has released an update to RealPlayer to close a number of holes in its media player application. Version 15.02.71 of RealPlayer addresses a total of seven remote code execution vulnerabilities, rated as highly critical by Secunia, which could be exploited by an attacker to compromise a victim’s system. These include errors when processing RMFF Flags, VIDOBJ_START_CODE and RealAudio coded_frame_size, as well as RV10 Encoded Height/Width, RV20 Frame Size Array and RV40 content. A remote code execution problem in Atrac Sample Decoding has also been fixed but is not found in the 15.x.x branch of the media player; this issue affects Mac RealPlayer 12.0.0.1701 but is reportedly not found in version 12.0.0.1703. ...

February 7, 2012 Â· 1 min Â· 195 words Â· Omid Farhang

Joomla! updates close information disclosure holes

The H-Online: Versions 1.7.5 and 2.5.1 of the open source Joomla! content management system (CMS) have been released to address two information disclosure vulnerabilities. These include one medium severity problem in Joomla! 1.7.x that could allow an unauthorized user to gain access to the error log stored on a victim’s server, and, in both versions, an inadequate validation problem that could be exploited to gain access to private data. The update to Joomla! 2.5, which arrived last month, also fixes 30 bugs, including one that caused batch processing to break. ...

February 6, 2012 Â· 1 min Â· 191 words Â· Omid Farhang

Adobe closes Acrobat and Reader security holes

The H-Online: The first patches for the zero-day flaw in Adobe’s Acrobat and Reader applications, which the company confirmed was being exploited in the wild, have been released. The initial problem was caused by a memory corruption when processing Universal 3D (U3D) files, which could allow attackers to potentially take control of an affected system. The patches released also address a newly revealed critical flaw (CVE-2011-4369) which can cause memory corruption when processing Product Representation Compact (PRC) 3D files. ...

December 17, 2011 Â· 2 min Â· 253 words Â· Omid Farhang

Persistent XSS Vulnerability in White House Website

The Hacker News: Alexander Fuchs, A German Security Researcher Discover Persistent XSS Vulnerability in Official website of White House. “The petition system is vulnerable. Every Petition i start or join will execute my code. I could join all petitions and my code will be executed on all users who visit the petition system.” He said. Read full story in German: http://www.1337core.de/2011/die-whitehouse-gov-lol-petition/ ...

November 4, 2011 Â· 1 min Â· 73 words Â· Omid Farhang