New attack kit targets bag of ActiveX bugs

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

The bad guys are now doing what I was worried about which is to rattle the
door a bunch of times to see which insecure ActiveX control will let them
inside someone's computer.  Many ActiveX controls also can't be
automatically updated by vendors with security fixes.  It's up to users to
learn about and manually install patches.

 

One solution to the problem is to have an industry-wide list of known bad
controls that is published on the Internet.  Security products can then use
this kill list to disable bad ActiveX controls which are hidden away on many
of our computers.

 

Richard

 

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic
<http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art
icleId=9075378> &articleId=9075378


New attack kit targets bag of ActiveX bugs


Gregg Keizer

April 07, 2008 (Computerworld) Hackers are using a new multiple-attack
package composed of seven ActiveX exploits, many of them never seen in the
wild before, said a security company on Friday. 

Fewer than half of the flawed ActiveX controls have been patched. 

The attack framework probes Windows PCs for vulnerable ActiveX controls from
software vendors Microsoft, Citrix Systems and Macrovision, as well as
hardware makers D-Link Corp., Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Sony, said a
Symantec Corp. researcher. 

"What's interesting about this attack is that there are so many
vulnerabilities in one attack that have not been seen in the wild
previously," said Symantec researcher Patrick Jungles, who wrote an analysis
of the multistrike package for customers of the company's DeepSight threat
service. 

According to Jungles, visitors to compromised Web sites are redirected by a
rogue IFRAME to a malicious site serving the package. The attack pack tests
the victim's PC for each ActiveX control, detects whether a vulnerable
version of a control is installed, and then launches an attack when it finds
one. 

Bugs in ActiveX, a Microsoft technology used most often to create add-ons
for the company's Internet Explorer browser, have always been common, but so
many serious flaws have been disclosed of late that some security experts
have recommended
<http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&art
icleId=9074979>  that users do without them. 

The seven exploited in the package outlined by Jungles are a mix of old and
brand-new flaws. For example, Microsoft's own ActiveX vulnerability -- a bug
in IE's Speech API -- was disclosed in June 2007, while the vulnerability in
the Citrix Presentation Server Client control harks back even further, to
December 2006. Others, such as the ActiveX bugs in D-Link's security webcams
and in Sony's ImageStation, are much more recent, having been revealed in
February. 

Four of the seven ActiveX flaws -- those in the D-Link, Gateway, Sony and
Macrovision products -- have not been patched, said Jungles. 

Assuming the exploit framework succeeds in compromising a PC, the hackers
drop a Trojan on the machine that turns it into a spam-spewing zombie; the
Trojan includes a rootkit component to mask the malware from antivirus
scanners. 

Symantec added that while the initial IP address that sent users to the
malicious site was no longer infected with the IFRAME code, other addresses
were redirecting users. 

"The list of IPs involved in the exploitation is by no means comprehensive,"
said Jungles, "because the nature of the exploitation indicates that several
other sites are likely forwarding victims." The IFRAME code, he continued,
had been found embedded in the legitimate sites' HTML and was at times
distributed via online advertisements; DNS poisoning, he said, was also
suspected. 

Jungles' report recommended that users apply patches, when they're
available, and set the "kill bit" on those ActiveX controls that have not
yet been updated by their makers.

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