RE: New article on SecurityFocus

["Brady McClenon" <BMcClenon () uamail albany edu>]

Just curious.  I hear media reports and people saying that there's
hundreds or thousands of compromised web site from this, but I have ask
where these numbers come from?  Where is this data, or is it pure
speculation?  I'm also curious how one could compromise a web server
with this exploit.  Putting files on a web server to dole out and
compromise other computers I can see, but is the web server really
compromised in this case?  If so, was it by way of the WMF exploit?

One last question:  Has anyone here experienced or know anyone that has
a "legitimate" web server compromised (or serving out) by the WMF
exploit.  I'm trying to determine if there are those with actual
knowledge that the sky is indeed falling, or if we are all shaking over
unsubstantiated media hype.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Drew Simonis [mailto:simonis () myself com] 
> Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 10:22 AM
> To: Thor (Hammer of God); Erin Carroll; pen-test () securityfocus com
> Cc: Larry Seltzer; focus-ms () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: New article on SecurityFocus
>
> > Overall, I think community's coverage of wmf has been delivered 
> > with an ounce of perception, and a pound of obscurity.  It's almost 
> > as if people *want* it to be worse than it is.  I'm not surprised, 
> > of course.  But regardless,  my call is that we'll see a little 
> > activity here and there, the patch will come out, most will install 
> > it (or have it installed automatically) and the whole issue will 
> > fade away.  But that's all.
> >
> > We'll know for sure shortly, either way.
>
> Thor,
> I think your path of thought is stuck a bit in the past.  
> Worms are neat as a technical exercise, but we see more and 
> more that the attackers are increasingly aware of the value 
> of these vulnerabilities from a financial perspective, not 
> merely for notoriety.  As such, it benefits the attacker to 
> have a less subtle attack, one that does not sensationalize 
> the vulnerability.  Complacency is their ally.  
>
> That said, there are already numerous (hundreds+) 
> "legitimate" web sites that have been compromised and had 
> exploit images injected into their content.  There are also 
> already hundreds of thousands of machines that have been 
> infected with Trojans or bots.  These infected machines will 
> patch, but they won't be safe, and the problem gets worse.  
>
> So no, there won't be some catastrophic worm event.  But I 
> posit that what there will be could be much worse.  
>
> -- 
> ___________________________________________________
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>
>
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