Re: Gates: 'You don't need perfect code' for good security

[Frank Knobbe <frank () knobbe us>]

On Sun, 2003-11-02 at 21:09, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 12:23:06 +1300, Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>  said:
> > Finding the actual location of the startup folder was beyond the 
> > exploit because it was running in an environment that could not query 
> > the registry or other system APIs that would reveal the location.

Actually, I think it was beyond the knowledge of the exploit writer. :)

> And for bonus points, explain how you fix the scheme so the poor sysadmin who
> has to run stuff at startup is able to find the folder, but an exploit running
> with 'administrator' or 'system' can't find it?

Sure. %SYSTEMROOT%. %WINDIR%, or %USERPROFILE% should work just fine for
most cases of scripting and such.

Of course viruses and other malware can use the same environment vars. I
guess the writers of these annoyances didn't think that far.... lucky us
:)

Regards,
Frank

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