blog.worm@xxxxxxxxx wrote: > I spotted it on Christopher Boyd's Vital Security blog. Chris is a > Microsoft security MVP and security research manager at FaceTime, an > instant messaging security company. However, this worm appears to have > spread much further and has slithered around the world. "worm"? Raises two questions -- one about your understanding of a very simple security concept and another about the moderator's choice of items, as your post is purely a self-promoting (?) piece of fluff devoid of significant security implications... > The worm is actually an animated GIF image. ... And the universal GIF-parsing vulnerability it exploits to spread is? That's right -- there isn't one. Nor is there even such a vuln limited to one more or less popular web browser or similar application possibly used for handling/viewing such image files... > ... Bloggers all over have > embedded it in their blogs and link to the creator's Web site.To > infect your blog, you have to copy and paste a piece of HTML code into > your blog. So, it's the blog equivalent of the notoriously vicious ".sig virus"... > This is funny, but on the flipside, however, there could be some > security implications if the hoster of this "worm" decided to upload a > malicious image that took control of the PC's that visit sites that > show it. (Or if the hoster's site was hacked.) Yep, and that is much the same risk as the possibility of a spammer or some other similarly unscrupulous sleaze-oid (like your typical adware/spyware pusher) finding (or buying) that same 0-day .GIF- rendering sploit and deploying it through their own "distribution channels". In short, there is no new or extended threat here... > "There are no malicious plans with the blog worm," said Robin Schuil, > its creator, in an e-mail. ... Well that's nice and reassuring, isn't it?? > ... "However, it is a self mutating worm. From > day to day it will say different things." No -- folk with a few functioning brain cells will have immediately recognized, as did I, that it not a worm, therefore it cannot be a self mutating one. And, of course, even fewer functioning brain cells are needed to work out that it is Robin Schuil who "mutates" the .GIF at the end of the static link this whole silly farce depends on, so it certainly is NOT a _self_ mutating anything... > Still, as a precaution, we're hosting Thursday's version of the worm > on our own servers. If you want to see it mutate, you will have to go > to Robin's page. > > Source: http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6031795.html One may tempted, at this point, to draw a conclusion about the quality of journalists employed by news.com/C|Net, but as doing so in print may not please the list moderators (or at least, may agitate their lawyers were the moderators to accept such a posting), one will resist... Regards, Nick FitzGerald
