Vulnerability Development mailing list archives
Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls
From: swadlow () UTDALLAS EDU (Su Wadlow)
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 00:04:12 -0500
--On Sunday, May 28, 2000 10:18 PM -0400 Nathan Einwechter <morrisok () EXECULINK COM> wrote:
I don't know if this has already been explored, but if word and excel files are correctly recognised without the extensions, how does Word and Excel do this?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but . . . . Page formatting and such is saved in a document in the form of various control codes (the old DOS WordPerfect let you do some limited editing of it's codes, IIRC). Embedded in those codes is information about the app which created the document. You can see some of that info by opening a document in a text editor. There'll be a bunch of control characters, and text strings like the app's name and version and such.
If this where to be discovered I cannot see a reason why one wouldn't be able to trick the programs into believing it is a Word or Excel file, which would, in turn, could possibly open various other holes, I don't really know much about what could be done through word or excel, but I can see some possiblities with this.
While I know that you can really screw up a document by messing with control information in, say, a text editor, I don't know of any way in which it can be *inserted* into some other file. I *think* recognition of the app's specific format is done by recognizing both the textual application info *and* the formatting control codes. -- Su Wadlow swadlow () utdallas edu If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand . . . . :-)
Current thread:
- netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Chad Thunberg (May 23)
- ActiveX, VBScript etc... reactivation Andrew Leong (May 25)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Dimitry Andric (May 25)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Gareth Jones (May 28)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Joseph, Lorne (May 25)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Nathan Einwechter (May 28)
- Outlook/HTML "proggie" methodman (Jan 29)
- Re: Outlook/HTML "proggie" Thierry Zoller (Mar 22)
- Re: Outlook/HTML "proggie" Knud Erik Højgaard (Apr 30)
- Re: Outlook/HTML "proggie" Blue Boar (May 31)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Su Wadlow (May 28)
- Security code verification for JAVA Martin M Samson (May 29)
- Re: Security code verification for JAVA Bluefish (May 29)
- Outlook/HTML "proggie" methodman (Jan 29)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls John Brahy (May 29)
- Re: netscape 4.61 recognizes file.changed-doc/xls Su Wadlow (May 29)