Re: Windows Messenger Pop-up spam

["Kevin Davis" <kevin.davis () mindless com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven Trewick" <STrewick () joplings co uk>
To: "'Paul Kurczaba'" <paul () myipis com>; "'Matthew Romanek'" 
<shandower () gmail com>; <security-basics () securityfocus com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 12:00 PM
Subject: RE: Windows Messenger Pop-up spam


> > Some people may have also gone into "services" and
> > disabled the messenger service.
>
> Which will merely have lulled them into a false sense of security,
> since the traffic is still making it to their IP stack. For windows
> boxen, this is almost as good as "game over"

Not necessarily.  I have disabled the Messenger service.  This has less to 
do with pop-ups as it does general security.  I have no need for the 
Messenger service.  It is part of hardening a system to turn off unneeded 
services.  Any unneeded service running is an unnecessary risk as it may 
have other vulnerabilities (as we have seen with the Messenger service and 
the sendmail daemon to name a few).  And yes, I do have a firewall up and am 
behind a router so I wasn't getting hit by pop-ups anyways.  Any box with XP 
SP2 installed should block the Messenger traffic by default as well.  So it 
isn't "game over" for all windows systems.

Anyone who has no firewall (doesn't have SP2 installed) and no router and 
turns off the Messenger service would probably be lulled into a false sense 
of security.