The flaws could have allowed hackers to execute malicious code on computers with no user interaction
Ghost HeX
A Google security researcher has found high severity vulnerabilities in enterprise and consumer products from antivirus vendor Symantec that could be easily be exploited by hackers to take control of computers.
Symantec released patches for the affected products, but while some products were updated automatically, some affected enterprise products could require manual intervention.
The flaws were found by Tavis Ormandy, a researcher with Google’s Project Zero team who has found similar vulnerabilities in antivirus products from other vendors. They highlight the poor state of software security in the antivirus world, something that has been noted by researchers.
Most of the new flaws found by Ormandy are in the Decomposer component of the Symantec antivirus engine. This component handles the parsing of various file formats, including archive files like RAR and ZIP. Furthermore, the Decomposer runs under the system user, the most privileged account on Windows systems.
Symantec didn’t immediately respond to a request for comments on the vulnerabilties.
Security researchers have criticized antivirus vendors many times for performing risky operations like file parsing with unnecessarily elevated privileges. Historically, such operations have been a source of many arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in all sorts of applications.
Ormandy found vulnerabilities in the Symantec code used to handle ZIP, RAR, LZH, LHA, CAB, MIME, TNEF and PPT files. Most of these flaws can lead to remote code execution and are wormable, meaning they can be used to create computer worms.
“Because Symantec uses a filter driver to intercept all system I/O [input/output operations], just emailing a file to a victim or sending them a link to an exploit is enough to trigger it—the victim does not need to open the file or interact with it in anyway,” Ormandy said in a blog post.
Even more surprising is the fact that Symantec appears to have used code from open source libraries, but failed to import patches released by those projects over the years.
For example, Ormandy determined that Symantec products were using version 4.1.4 of an open-source unrar package that was released in January 2012. The most current version of that code is 5.3.11. A similar situation was also observed for another library called libmspack.
“Dozens of public vulnerabilities in these libraries affected Symantec, some with public exploits,” Ormandy said. “We sent Symantec some examples, and they verified they had fallen behind on releases.”
The failure to keep track of vulnerabilities patched in the third-party code used by software vendors and developers in their own projects is a widespread problem. However, there’s a natural expectation that security vendors would not make that mistake. After all, they often preach secure software development and vulnerability management to others.
Unfortunately, “when looking at how even a behemoth of a security product vendor like Symantec is bundling ancient code in their products, clearly hasn’t subjected this code to security reviews and testing, and to top it off runs this old, unsafe code with SYSTEM/root privileges, it is clear that security vendors don’t hold themselves to very high standards,” Carsten Eiram, the chief research officer of vulnerability intelligence firm Risk Based Security, said by email.
According to RBS’ data, 222 vulnerabilities have been reported this year in security products, representing 3.4 percent of all vulnerabilities seen in 2016 so far.
“It may not sound like much, but it’s actually quite significant,” Eiram said.
Symantec has published a security advisory that lists the affected products and contains instructions on how to update them. All Norton products—the consumer line—should have been updated automatically .Regards, Ghost HeX
Facebook uses your location data to suggest new friends, despite huge privacy concerns
Ghost HeX
Facebook’s “People You May Know” has always been an interesting algorithm to watch in action. While we can’t claim to have analyzed its function in-depth, it’s fascinating to see how the addition of a single friend can change the people Facebook thinks you might like to follow. Add a few high school buddies, and you’ll see more of your fellow graduates. Add a business contact or family member, and the same thing happens.
A recent investigation by Fusion.net found that Facebook doesn’t just prowl your phone contacts or mutual friends to find potential suggestions. The company also uses your location data to match you with other Facebook users, unless you’ve specifically configured your smartphone not to share that information.A Facebook representative told Fusion: “We show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors.” Simply being in the same location as another person isn’t supposed to trigger a “PYMK” notification, but the Fusion story discusses the case of a parent who attended an anonymous group meeting of parents with suicidal teenagers. The next morning, Facebook suggested that one of the other anonymous parents at the meeting was a person that the first parent might know. None of the parents in question had exchanged any contact information, and while Facebook claims that the two individuals must have had some other network in common, the episode highlights just how much data the company scoops up on its user base, as well as how little we really know about what the company does with that information.
Ongoing research into the so-called “six degrees of separation” has confirmed that the gap between two random people is often much smaller than you might think, which means it may not be particularly difficult for Facebook to find a common network between virtually any two people. Without knowing more about the company’s practices it’s impossible to know how two people attending the same anonymous event, neither of whom knew each other previously, wound up being matched together.
As privacy dwindles, real-world risks mount
Earlier this month, we wrote about Facebook’s aggressive use of location tracking as part of its new mobile advertising rollout. Going forward, Facebook will tell advertisers if their local ads drive additional foot traffic to stores and share aggregate demographic information on the customers in question. Obviously a feature like this can’t work if you don’t enable location services or connect to WiFi, which is why Facebook’s iOS and Android clients recommend leaving location services enabled.The fact that two people who attended a deliberately anonymous meeting were “outed” to each other on Facebook is one small example of how continually chipping away at user privacy can have significant real-world consequences. Just because you visited a bar, went to a concert, or saw a movie doesn’t mean you’re interested in being friends with every single person you shared the experience with. People seeking treatment for mental or physical illness may not be interested in meeting people who share these traits, or may simply wish to keep their private lives private.
At its best, Facebook’s PYMK is a useful way to find old acquaintances or friends you’ve lost touch with. But there are risks associated with simply smashing people’s profiles together based on unknown network linkages and proximity to one another. We recommend disabling location services for Facebook unless you absolutely need to leave them on. There’s no reason to hand the company a comprehensive record of where you go and when you went there.
Microsoft has agreed to pay a Californian woman $10,000 (£7,500) after an automatic Windows 10 update left her computer unusable.
Teri Goldstein said her Windows 7 computer had automatically tried to update itself to Windows 10 without her permission.
She said the update had made her machine unstable, leaving her unable to use it to run her business.
Microsoft said it had dropped its appeal to save on legal costs.
Microsoft has been aggressively pushing the latest version of its widely used operating system, which is currently available as a free download for computers running Windows 7 and 8.
However, many people have chosen not to upgrade, because they are running old hardware, have software that does not run on Windows 10, are concerned over the software's tracking features, or simply do not want it.In February, the company bundled Windows 10 in with its security updates and made it a "recommended update", which meant it was automatically downloaded and installed unless blocked by the user.
Some people accused the company of trying to "trick" customers into installing the update.
The Seattle Times reported that Ms Goldstein's computer had "slowed to a crawl" after the update, and Microsoft customer support had not fixed the problem.
"I had never heard of Windows 10. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update," she told the newspaper. Regards, Ghost HeX
