Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: Self-Executing FOLDERS: Windows XP Explorer Part V


From: Jelmer <jkuperus () planet nl>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:25:31 +0100

Thor I know you hang out on irc a lot so let me give you an example you can
relate to,  say you met this girl on irc you talk and she seems nice, now
she offers to send you photo's of herself, If the zip file where to include
an exe or html file naturaly you wouldn't open it, now ask yourself if it
had a single dir called my.pics.folder, would you double click on it
expecting she just zipped the whole dir. I would. So no it isn't not a
vulnerability perse, He never claimed it was,  But it's a very usefull
social engineering trick, and I am thankfull to http-equiv for pointing it
out since I would have been fooled by this. Also I honestly don't see why
there should be such a beast as a .folder extention, is there any usefull
purpose for it at all except for making files that aren't really folders
apear as folders?

you can probably just rename

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.Folder

to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.FolderSOME_RANDOM_STUFF

to remove the association with the .folder I don't think it would cause any
trouble but just in case it does you can always rename it back


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thor Larholm" <thor () pivx com>
To: <1 () malware com>; <bugtraq () securityfocus com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 7:14 PM
Subject: RE: Self-Executing FOLDERS: Windows XP Explorer Part V


Why don't we call a spade a spade? You renamed an HTML file from "My
Pics.html" to "My Pics.Folder", it's still an HTML file and not a folder.

In fact, except for the changed file extension this is simply just a
repeat
of your previous post, "Self-Executing HTML: Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6.0
Part IV", except that the ".Folder" file extension is new to Windows XP
and
makes the file have a folder icon.

When you open any file regardless of extension, Explorer tries to find the
proper application to open the file with. This involves inspecting the
first
section of the files content and comparing it to a list of known
signatures.
You can read about "MIME Type Detection in Internet Explorer" at


http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/networking/moniker/overview/appendix_a.asp

We already know that opening HTML files from the My Computer zone is
equivelant to opening an EXE file, given the executional rights provided
by
the zone. The only solution to this is to lock down the My Computer zone
which I have been trying to advocate for some time now and Microsoft has
now
promised to do in Service Pack 2 for Windows XP.


Regards

Thor Larholm
Senior Security Researcher
PivX Solutions
24 Corporate Plaza #180
Newport Beach, CA 92660
http://www.pivx.com
thor () pivx com
Phone: +1 (949) 231-8496
PGP: 0x5A276569
6BB1 B77F CB62 0D3D 5A82 C65D E1A4 157C 5A27 6569

PivX defines "Proactive Threat Mitigation". Get a FREE Beta Version of
Qwik-Fix <http://www.qwik-fix.net>

-----Original Message-----
From: http-equiv () excite com [mailto:1 () MALWARE COM]
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 8:51 AM
To: NTBUGTRAQ () LISTSERV NTBUGTRAQ COM
Subject: Self-Executing FOLDERS: Windows XP Explorer Part V


Sunday, January 25, 2004


The following file is a 'folder' comprising both scripting and an
executable
[*.exe].

We inject scripting and an executable into the 'folder' which is designed
to
point back to the executable in the 'folder' and execute it. Provided the
'folder' is an html file, Windows XP Explorer will execute it.

Because it is an 'folder' proper, Windows Explorer opens it. The scripting
inside is then parsed and fired. That scripting is pointing back to the
same
executable file and because it is a self-executing 'folder',  it executes
!

Fully self-contained harmless *.exe.

Windows XP only:


http://www.malware.com/my.pics.zip


Be aware of 'folders' out there.



--
http://www.malware.com

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