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Attackers are targeting a flaw in the DNS service for Windows server OSes that could hijack the computers that run them, Microsoft warns. The software behemoth advises admins to employ workarounds pending completion of its investigation. The vulnerability affects Windows 2000 Server, Service Pack 4 and SP 1 and SP2 versions of Windows Server 2003, according to this Microsoft advisory. DNS functionality exposed over port 53 is not at risk. Nor are Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP and Windows Vista. An attack can be carried out by executing a stack-based buffer overrun in the DNS Server's remote procedure call (RPC)...

Yahoo has patched a buffer overflow vulnerability in its instant-messaging tool that would have enabled attackers to potentially execute code on a compromised machine.

Core Security is reporting a remote buffer exploit for the OpenBSD operating system. This is also being reported on /. Title: OpenBSD's IPv6 mbufs remote kernel buffer overflow Class: Buffer Overflow Remotely Exploitable: Yes Locally Exploitable: No   Advisory URL:http://www.coresecurity.com/?action=item&id=1703Vendors contacted:OpenBSD.org   Vulnerability Description The OpenBSD kernel contains a memory corruption vulnerability in the code that handles IPv6 packets. Exploitation of this vulnerability can result in: 1) Remote execution of arbitrary code at the kernel level on the vulnerable systems (complete system compromise), or; 2) Remote denial of service attacks against vulnerable systems (system crash due to a kernel panic)...

FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against Giuliani and prepare the candidate and his staff...

FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against Giuliani and prepare the candidate and his staff...

There is a major zero day bug announced in solaris 10 and 11 with the telnet and login combination. It has been verified. In my opinion NOBODY be should running telnet open to the internet. Versions of Solaris 9 and lower do not appear to have this vulnerability. The issue: The telnet daemon passes switches directly to the login process which looks for a switch that allows root to login to any account without a password. If your telnet daemon is running as root it allows unauthenticated remote logins. Telnet should be disabled. Since 1994 the cert.org team has recommended...

Firefox Popup Blocker Allows Reading Arbitrary Local Files There is an interesting vulnerability in the default behavior of Firefox built-in popup blocker. This vulnerability, coupled with an additional trick, allows the attacker to read arbitrary user-accessible files on the system, and thus steal some fairly sensitive information Vulnerable Systems:  * Firefox version 1.5.0.9 For security reasons, Firefox does not allow Internet-originating websites to access the file:// namespace. When the user chooses to manually allow a blocked popup however, normal URL permission checks are bypassed. The attacker may fool the browser to parse a chosen HTML document stored on the local...

Last month, security researcher HD Moore decided to write a simple program that would mangle the code found in web pages and gauge the effect such data would have on the major browsers. The result: hundreds of crashes and the discovery of several dozen flaws. The technique - called packet, or data, fuzzing - is frequently used to find flaws in network applications. Moore and others are now turning the tool on browsers to startling results. In a few weeks, the researcher had found hundreds of ways to crash Internet Explorer and, to a lesser extent, other browsers. In another...

Michael Lehn has discovered a vulnerability in Mac OS X, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the processing of file association meta data in ZIP archives (stored in the "__MACOSX" folder) and mail messages (defined via the AppleDouble MIME format). This can be exploited to trick users into executing a malicious shell script renamed to a safe file extension stored in a ZIP archive or in a mail attachment. This can also be exploited automatically via the Safari browser when visiting a malicious web site.

Smoot Hawley, Chinese Style By: George Gilder Forbes.com May 20, 2005 Original Article In his insightful new book, The World Is Flat, Tom Friedman of The New York Times, though generally disdainful of anything conservative, somehow brings himself to cite an exemplary Heritage Foundation study of U.S. companies with facilities in China. These firms are not an unhealthy set of "Benedict Arnolds," as they were quaintly dubbed by Sen. John Kerry during the last presidential campaign. They are the heart of the U.S. economy and the spearhead of global economic growth. As Friedman explains, these manufacturing outsourcers together generate...

Computer security experts were grappling with the threat of a newweakness in Microsoft’s Windows operating system that could put hundreds of millions of PCs at risk of infection by spyware or viruses. The news marks the latest security setback for Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, whose Windows operating system is a favourite target for hackers. “The potential [security threat] is huge,” said Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, an antivirus company. “It’s probably bigger than for any other vulnerability we’ve seen. Any version of Windows is vulnerable right now.” The flaw, which allows hackers to infect computers using...

A serious flaw has been discovered in a core component of Windows 2000, with no possible work-around until it gets fixed, a security company said. The vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system could enable remote intruders to enter a PC via its Internet Protocol address, Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer at eEye Digital Security, said on Wednesday. As no action on the part of the computer user is required, the flaw could easily be exploited to create a worm attack, he noted. What may be particularly problematic with this unpatched security hole is that a work-around is unlikely, he said. "You...

A security flaw that could let an attacker remotely crash computers running Windows exists in several versions of the operating system, not just Windows XP. Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack that exploits a problem in the Remote Desktop Protocol, Microsoft said in an advisory on Saturday. RDP is a protocol that enables remote access to Windows systems. Because of a flaw in the way Windows handles remote desktop requests, an attacker could crash a PC by sending a malformed remote request, Microsoft said. The advisory was released after the security researcher...

BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese general said Beijing might respond with nuclear weapons if the United States attacked China in a conflict over Taiwan, news reports said Friday. While the general has no policy-making role in China, his comments could add to tensions with Washington at a time of U.S. worries about China's military buildup and the proposed takeover of the oil company Unocal Corp. by a Chinese state-run company. "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition into the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Maj.-Gen. Zhu Chenghu, a...

Save for the 9/11 attacks that leveled the World Trade Center, the United States has not had to confront the reality of suicide bombings. But for how much longer? If Americans fail to halt the partisan ankle-biting that has come to characterize most discussions of the War on Terror, and instead present a united front to the world, they will soon find out. That Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a key element in the worldwide terrorist network of which Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were the kingpins is largely now beyond dispute. Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, writing in...

If anyone still thinks that the worldwide Islamic Jihad is going to go away simply because we have had some success in Afghanistan and are paving the way for a democratic government in Iraq, the attack in London as the G-8 meeting was to convene should dispel such notions. Most revealing was the G-8 agenda, devoted to so-called global warming and forgiving African debt, two examples of wishful thinking based on neither scientific, nor economic evidence either would accomplish anything. More to the point, the Islamic Jihadists took the opportunity to remind us who and what the real enemy is....

Tax Day is a good time to take a hard look at the way government spends your tax dollars - if you have the stomach for it. Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has poured nearly $6 billion into homeland security, and this year's $1.7 billion appropriation represents a 306 percent increase over last year's. But Congress has also ignored the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to use this colossal sum primarily to protect the nation's most vulnerable and strategic targets - including Washington. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered on political pork, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman...

Symantec has reported glitches in its antivirus software that could allow hackers to launch denial-of-service attacks on computers running the applications. In a notice posted on its Web site this week, Symantec detailed two similar vulnerabilities found in its Norton AntiVirus software, which is sold on its own or bundled in Norton Internet Security and Norton System Works. The flaws, which could lead to computers crashing or slowing severely if attacked, are limited to versions of the software released for 2004 and 2005. The Information-Technology Promotion Agency of Japan, a government-affiliated tech watchdog group, identified the first instance of the...

Phishers are taking advantage of Microsoft’s new software anti-piracy initiative by launching a wave of phishing e-mails in an attempt to get credit card numbers from Microsoft customers. The rogue e-mails also allow phishers to install spyware and adware on users’ machines. Last month Microsoft said it would not allow users in some countries install software updates online unless they could prove that their Microsoft software was legitimate. Security company Websense said it has received several reports of two new versions of spoofed e-mails that are being used to install spyware/adware onto end-user's machines and steal credit card details. The...

By far the most dramatic menace to this nation’s future and safety emanates from the cauldrons of Islamist extremism. But Americans are also in danger of losing their country on another front. A far larger incursion into the American homeland is being carried out via its southern border. Though an ongoing problem for many years, its instigators now apparently believe they are ready to take their attack to the next level. During a January 28 radio interview, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has threatened the State of Arizona with legal action through the international courts in order to overturn...