Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit
From: "Valery Marchuk" <tecklord () argocom cv ua>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:52:23 +0300
Skype made a funny "explanation" of the problem...Lets say, people download updates on Tuesday in the US, on Wednesday in Europe and just happen to reboot their computers simultaneously on Thursday? :)
As I remember, there were two primary theories of the problem source: 1.. Microsoft's updates 2.. DoS attackIt seems Skype has decided to make their own theory based on these two: so it was a DoS, but not an attack, and it was updates fault, but not Microsoft's.
I do believe that the DoS Exploit, published at www.securitylab.ru, might have such an impact, but it's impossible to prove anything and it's not necessary. I just would like to say, that Skype could came up with more realistic story, for example: someone made a mistake in the code, or they were trying to implement new feature and everyone would believe, even me :)
Best regards, Valery Marchuk www.SecurityLab.ru----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven M. Christey" <coley () mitre org>
To: <tecklord () argocom cv ua>; <bugtraq () securityfocus com> Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 8:39 PM Subject: Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit
The outage being experienced by Skype was apparently due to massive simultaneous reboots and reconnects after systems installed their Windows patches. from http://heartbeat.skype.com/2007/08/what_happened_on_august_16.html: The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update. The high number of restarts affected Skype's network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact. I wonder how many other services are impacted by simultaneous Windows scheduled updates. Anyway... given that this was going on at the time the SecurityLab.ru exploit was released, and the exploit only claims a DoS (and only seems to make a series of requests to long URIs), was the exploit actually effective, or was the "DoS" just part of the larger outage?- Steve
Current thread:
- Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Valery Marchuk (Aug 17)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Steven M. Christey (Aug 20)
- RE: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Marc Maiffret (Aug 20)
- RE: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit David Harley (Aug 21)
- Re[2]: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Matthew Leeds (Aug 21)
- Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Valery Marchuk (Aug 21)
- Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Roland Dobbins (Aug 21)
- RE: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Marc Maiffret (Aug 20)
- Re: Skype Network Remote DoS Exploit Jay (Aug 22)