Apple Security Breach Gives Complete Access to Your iPhone
August 7, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Right now, if you visit a web page and load a simple PDF file, you may give total control of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to a hacker. The security bug affects all devices running iOS 3.1.2 and higher.
Update: Initially we thought that this exploit only effected iOS4 devices, but it turns out all iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads running 3.1.2 and higher are susceptible.
The vulnerability is easily exploitable. In fact, the latest one-click, no-computer-required Jailbreak solution for iOS 4 devices uses this same method to break Apple’s own security (although in a completely benign way for the user).
How it works
It just requires the user to visit a web address using Safari. The web site can automatically load a simple PDF document, which contains a font that hides a special program. When your iOS device tries to display the PDF file, that font causes something called stack overflow, a technical condition that allows the secret ninja code inside the font to gain complete control of your device.
The result is that, without any user intervention whatsoever, that program can do whatever it wants inside your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Anything you can imagine: Delete files, transmit files, install programs running on the background that can monitor your actions… anything can be done.
This is not the first time that something similar has happened. At the beginning of the iPhone’s life there was a problem with TIFF files that also caused the same security breach. Apple patched the bug after a while, but back then there were very few iPhones compared to the current installed base. Apple says that there are 100 million iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads in the world. Obviously, malicious hackers are racing to get a slice of that market.
How can you avoid it?
Right now, the easiest way to avoid this problem is by not going to any PDF links directly and not loading any PDF from any non-trusted source.
You can also jailbreak your iPhone and install a program that will ask for authorization every time your browser encounters a PDF (just look for “PDF loading warner” in Cydia).
While this doesn’t solve the security problem at all, at least it will remind you every single time.
Source : http://gizmodo.com
Adobe products struck by zero-day attacks
June 6, 2010 by admin
Filed under Security News
Adobe’s products are once again in the firing line, as hackers are reportedly exploiting critical unpatched vulnerabilities in the products Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player.
Adobe has published a security advisory describing the problems which affect users regardless of whether they’re running Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris or UNIX.
Adobe has labelled the zero-day vulnerabilities as “critical”, the most serious rating it has.
Adobe says that Adobe Reader and Acrobat version 8.x are not vulnerable, and that the Flash Player 10.1 release candidate “does not appear to be vulnerable”.
Although Adobe has published a way to mitigate the problem for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows, the workaround is clearly not ideal:
Deleting, renaming, or removing access to the authplay.dll file that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x mitigates the threat for those products, but users will experience a non-exploitable crash or error message when opening a PDF file that contains SWF content.
Adobe Exploit puts Backdoor on Computers
October 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Security News
A new zero-day exploit targeting Adobe Reader, as well as 9.1.3 and earlier versions of Adobe Systems’ Acrobat, drops a backdoor onto computers using JavaScript, Trend Micro researchers warned on Friday.
Trend Micro identified the exploit as a Trojan horse dubbed “Troj_Pidief.Uo” in a blog post. It arrives as a PDF file containing JavaScript-based malware, “Js_Agent.Dt,” and then drops a backdoor called “Bkdr_Protux.Bd.”
The exploit affects Microsoft Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, and Server 2003, according to Trend Micro.
The blog post provides technical details on how the malware works, specifically the activity of its shell code, the piece of code that delivers the payload. The JavaScript is used to execute arbitrary codes in a technique known as “heap spraying.”
“Based on our findings, the shell code (that was heap-sprayed) jumps to another shell code inside the PDF file” before extracting and executing the backdoor, Trend Micro said. The backdoor “is also embedded in the PDF file and not the usual file downloaded from the Web.”
Variants of the Protux backdoor typically provide an attacker unrestricted user-level access to a compromised machine and previously exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office files, according to Trend Micro.
Adobe announced on Thursday that it would release an update to fix the hole on Tuesday, the same day as Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday.
This screenshot shows the embedded executable file in the PDF file, after it has been decrypted.
Source : Cnet (Credit: Trend Micro)
