Re: Fun with event logs (semi-offtopic)

[3APA3A <3APA3A () SECURITY NNOV RU>]

Dear Michele Cicciotti,

--Thursday, December 21, 2006, 6:20:54 PM, you wrote to full-disclosure () lists grok org uk:

> > There  is  interesting  thing  with  event  logging on Windows. The only
> > security  aspect  of  it  is  event log record tampering and performance
> > degradation,  but  it may become sensitive is some 3rd party software is
> > used for automated event log analysis.

MC> I doubt this. The event logs don't contain the actual formatted
MC> string, because the template string is localized and only retrieved
MC> when the entry is displayed - what is logged is just a message id
MC> and the string inserts (see documentation for EVENTLOGRECORD).
MC> FormatMessage (which is used to build the full message to display to
MC> the user) isn't the culprit, either, because it doesn't operate
MC> recursively (that would have bizarre consequences, since

As  I  wrote,  my message is semi-offtopic, because it's more fun than
any  security  vulnerability  here.

Yes,  probably  this  bug  only  affects  event  viewer  itself. I don't
understand  how  and why Microsoft achieved this effect in event viewer,
which  is,  by  the  way,  security tool, and if it's hard for different
vendor  to  make  same  mistake. It doesn't look like Easter egg, but if
FormatMessage  does  not recursion it needs to be specially coded and it
does  nothing  except this bug. Bug, that needs to be specially coded is
new funny bug category, isn't it?

-- 
~/ZARAZA
http://www.security.nnov.ru/

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