Posted on 12/15/2008 10:36:51 AM PST by GATOR NAVY
Microsoft warned Saturday of a "huge increase" in attacks exploiting a critical unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE), and said some originated from hacked pornography sites.
Other researchers confirmed that attacks were increasingly coming from compromised Web sites.
Microsoft noted the upswing in attacks on the company's Malware Protection Center blog late Saturday. "The trend for now is going upwards," said researchers Ziv Mador and Tareq Saadecom on the blog. "We saw a huge increase in the number of reports today compared to yesterday."
Hackers have been exploiting a data binding bug in IE for more than a week , according to researchers who first noted in-the-wild attack code on Chinese servers . The vulnerability, which exists in all versions of the Microsoft browser, including IE5.01, IE6, IE7, and IE8 Beta 2, has so far been exploited only by attack code that targets IE7, the most widely used edition.
Mador and Saadecom said that attacks are increasingly being launched from legitimate Web sites. "Some legitimate Web sites were maliciously modified to include the exploits," the two said. A popular Taiwanese search engine and a Hong Kong-based pornography site were among the sites hacked, then set up to attack visitors running IE.
Researchers at Trend Micro also reported a big increase in hacked sites serving exploits aimed at the new IE bug. On Saturday, the security firm estimated that about 6,000 sites have been infected so far, noting that the count was "quickly increasing in number."
As in previous, large-scale attacks based on legitimate Web sites, this one involves hackers who execute SQL injection attacks to first compromise the site. In a SQL injection attack, hackers exploit vulnerabilities in Web applications that rely on a back-end database, which then gives them a way to add and run malicious code, usually rogue JavaScript, against any browser.
Microsoft acknowledged that attacks have become a significant problem. "Based on our stats, since the vulnerability has gone public, roughly 0.2 percent of users worldwide may have been exposed to Web sites ontaining exploits of this latest vulnerability," Mador and Saadecom said. "That percentage may seem low, however it still means that a significant number of users have been affected."
The move to legitimate, but hacked, sites is a change in tactics. As recently as Thursday, attacks were coming only from malicious sites, most of them in China. Even then, however, Microsoft had warned that hackers would probably expand the scope of their attacks by compromising valid sites.
In related news, Microsoft said it was working on a patch for IE, although it has still not said when it would issue the update. Some researchers expect the company to release a fix outside Microsoft's normal monthly schedule; the next security updates aren't due until Jan. 9, 2009. Microsoft also revised its security advisory for a third time Saturday, adding more information about the recommended actions users should take until a patch is available. The company has offered up a total of nine different workarounds for IE users, several of which require editing of the Windows registry, a chore most users assiduously avoid.
I've seen a bunch of them.
I don’t use FF anymore and I haven’t used IE in many years. I use Google Chrome.
XP and Firefox get along swell.
Have you tried to get any updates from MS?
If you log on with Firefox, it denies you access...........
I’m a Firefox guy.
Now that I am stuck with Vista, I cannot use Firefox because it always crashes a la Vista's incompatiblity.
Next purchase will be a Mac, I promise!
:-)
It would be cheaper to downgrade to XP...............
Hogwash............
Chrome is too plain because it’s too new. I’m completely spoiled using my favorite Firefox extensions and plugins. Chrome is fast and stable, but that’s all I can really say about it.
Not hogwash. Many PC builders have contracts with Microsoft that prevent them from offering drivers for XP.
Also going unnoticed is that printer manufacturers have pulled Windows 98 drivers from their support sites. Not just for new models, but for their older models.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with Windows 2000, which I’m running.
That's not the same as "can't" be done............
“Also going unnoticed is that printer manufacturers have pulled Windows 98 drivers from their support sites.”
I have noticed that as well. I volunteer at a thrift store from time to time refurbishing stuff for internal use as well as for sell, and the ability to reuse older printers on older hardware is quite hampered by this.
“That’s not the same as “can’t” be done............”
Yep....
format c:......
Are you sure?
works for me..
There’s always driverguide.com, but they are going to pay for play. Not that I blame them.
PROPER software development starts with validating all inputs and decent management of memory allocation.
Or you can just run through a bunch of ads....then download for free.
Unless there is some hardware mod that prevents it from working with anything except vista, but that would prevent it from using linux or any other OS, also.....
Interesting article in the latest CPU magazine. They say that Microsoft had a browser developed in 1998 with the features and architecture of Google Chrome, but pulled it because they were already being sued by the government for their integrated browser.
The unreleased browser was also called Chrome.
So rehab the older computers with a flavor of Linux.
There’s flavors out there that work fine with older hardware. MEPIS comes to mind, but hey, they’re all free. Find one that works for you and stick with it.
BTW, on the Mac I prefer Camino for web browsing. Rock solid, basic browser (limited extensibility), stays out of your way, renders d@#n near everything.
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