Microsoft Security Under Fire

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,476333,00.asp

August 19, 2002 
By Dennis Fisher 

Microsoft Corp.'s commitment to security, specifically its Trustworthy
Computing initiative, is being questioned after its inaction regarding
two new reports of security vulnerabilities in its products, security
experts say.

Twice in the past three weeks, experts have issued reports of security
flaws in Microsoft products, and both times the company remained
silent, making no immediate public comment and issuing no fix.

The lack of communication has left users wondering if patches were in
the works or even if the reported problems were legitimate.

The most recent report, posted to SecurityFocus' BugTraq mailing list
by researcher Mike Benham, explained a flaw in the way Internet
Explorer handles digital certificates used in SSL (Secure Sockets
Layer) connections to remote Web servers. Such certificates are
typically issued and signed by CAs (certificate authorities) such as
VeriSign Inc., which lists the Web site that owns them.

Benham found that most current versions of Microsoft's Web browser
fail to check the legitimacy of certificates issued by intermediate
CAs. As a result, a malicious Web site operator could generate and
sign a fake certificate for another site and collect credit card
information and other data.

KDE Project's Konqueror is also vulnerable, but a patch was issued to
secure that browser within hours of the disclosure. AOL Time Warner
Inc.'s Netscape Navigator and Opera Software ASA's Opera browsers are
not susceptible to the problem.

While KDE was fixing the problem, Microsoft officials would say only
that the company was investigating it. Nine days after the advisory
was published, Microsoft posted an article to its TechNet site
explaining the flaw and saying that the scenario and the likelihood of
an attacker being caught make exploitation of the vulnerability
unlikely.

Microsoft security officials said the delay was necessary to
investigate the issue, since Benham released his advisory without
notifying Microsoft first. The company said it will issue a patch, but
officials could not say when.

"It's in the nature of these issues that we have to do highly detailed
research," said Scott Culp, manager of the Microsoft Security Response
Center, in Redmond, Wash.

Some customers are fed up.

"It is truly frustrating. I have vowed to eliminate using any
Microsoft products because I am so frustrated over their 'Take a
standard and modify it' approach," said James Rome, a senior scientist
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. "[But] it is
impossible to not use IE. It lurks under the covers everywhere. If you
do something like disable scripting in IE, other applications break."

Others say that the problems often don't end when Microsoft does issue
a patch.

"From the outside, there doesn't appear to be a reason Microsoft can't
fix the immediate issue," said Scott Blake, vice president of
information security at BindView Corp., in Houston.

"[However] it doesn't solve the larger problem that it is possible to
social engineer people into giving away confidential information over
the Web to people they don't intend to give it to," Blake said. "This
flaw makes it easier, but fixing [it] doesn't fix the problem."

Culp said the SSL problem is actually in the Windows code and not IE,
which would complicate the process of producing a patch.

A similar situation occurred earlier this month when a researcher
released a white paper claiming that the Win32 programming API in
Windows is flawed in a way that allows attackers to gain escalated
privileges once they've accessed a PC. Microsoft did not respond to
the author, nor did it make any public statements about the issue.

"They can't say anything definitive until they really know for sure,
but they should make some statement," said Chris Wysopal, director of
research and development at @Stake Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., security
consultancy and research company. "[The SSL problem] isn't a totally
simple issue. But when they stay silent, it looks like they don't
care."

Wysopal also disputed Microsoft's claims that attacks using the SSL
vulnerability are unlikely. An attacker would use a stolen SSL
certificate-not his own-making identification of the attacker much
more difficult.



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