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Open Source Concerns: Trojan Horses In the Code
Posted by
Hemos
on Thu Jul 22, 1999 01:42 PM
from the put-on-the-asbestos dept.
from the put-on-the-asbestos dept.
crisco writes to us with an article from InternetWeek addressing the concern of "trojan horse programs concealed inside open source code that could create new security headaches for IT managers", as the article says. The article deals mainly with the BO2K issue, which makes the whole open source connection a bit of a stretch.
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Open Source Program Concerns
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Where to begin... (Score:5)
BO2k isn't concealed inside another program..
When virus writers moved to an open source model in 1996, there was an explosion in macro viruses,...
Ah yes, I remember the good old days of proprietary virii...NOT.
The explosion in macro virii wouldn't have anything to do with a program that
could _host_ them now, would it?
Like, I don't know, maybe MS Office?
No mention of how much easier it is to construct
a macro virus as opposed to a real virus done in, say, x86 assembler.
Organizations "absolutely should be putting
security measures in place if they use NT to a
great degree" to thwart BO2K-specific attacks,
said Drew Williams, director of Axent Technologies'
SWAT Team.
Hmm, not quite sure what to say about this one...
Are they saying:
A)You don't need security if you don't use NT
B)You shouldn't use NT (I'll buy that)
C)If you only have one NT box you don't have to worry
D)Win9x, 3.1 aren't vulnerable
Internet Security Systems researchers have
already decoded BO2K protocols and encryption
algorithms.
Nice trick...somebody must have sent them the source
code in an encrypted email, yeah, thats
the ticket...
Jason Garms, product manager for NT security at
Microsoft, said the company will fix any known
security vulnerabilities in its operating
systems. "There's nothing wrong with [Microsoft]
systems until Back Orifice is installed.
Oh my.... Somebody should start
a 12 step group for folks like this
I detect some serious denial problems here.
How much are these fixes going to cost?
When can we expect delivery?
Thats what I thought...
Users on NT networks that
exchange files and use Internet chat systems
are at the highest risk....
So..don't use your network to
transfer files..just look at the pretty lights....
The elite hacker group is banking on tools
such as BO2K to eventually force Microsoft
to correct security weaknesses in its operating
systems.
Security experts don't see the logic.
"They didn't have to write code and
release it to the public," said ICSA's Thompson.
The bastards, how _dare_ they try
to push around Micros~1!
Who's the real victim here? Micros~1
or the "Security Experts" who have to get
off their well padded rear ends and do some work now?
Oh wait, I guess security expert is a synonym for pundit now.
Once the program is released,
Axent's Williams expects an "immediate
spike" in hacking activity
on NT systems, but expects it to trickle down to
some level of manageability.
The program is already released, Sparky...
I expect this is true if we use hacking in the
proper sense as in "Micros~1 programmers fixing
things up a bit"..
Though I expect if you replace "hack" with "kludge"
it'd be a little more accurate
Now _this_ is the kind of story I expect to see on
Just like backinaday
Re:possibly misinterpreted (Score:3)
Re:possibly misinterpreted (Score:3)
Excuse me ?? Macro Viruses? Wasn't it Microsofts own macro language that resulted in the rise of Macro Viruses. Open source had nothing to do with it. Damm read that line again what a load of Bullsh#t!
If you go to the BO2k website you'll see that Microsoft uses the STEALTH feature in their own product.
www.cultdeadcow.com/news/pr19990719.html
SMS is Microsoft's remote admin tool for Windows. As it happens, SMS has a nearly identical
stealth feature. As a matter of fact, they explain this feature in a Word document available
from the Microsoft website:
possibly misinterpreted (Score:4)
I think that you might have misinterpreted what this article is about. It is merely an article about Bo2k and how the fact that IS open source will cause problems for people. Meanwhile, it eludes the somewhat minor problem of people writing patches for legitimate software that turns in into trojan like software.
However I did glean a few bits of interesting stuff. Mainly that Microsoft is saying that if its a real remote admin tool that it wouldn't hide from the administrator. Umm, excuse me, I have the displeasure of having an NT server box here at work that I'm pseudo responsible for and NT Server Manager hides.
Secondly it doesn't mention the fact that if NT were written worth a damn, then it wouldn't be POSSIBLE to do this sort of stuff to it. There was the comment about it preying on users and not administrators, which is partially true, but its really MSs fault in the first place.
There was only one other thing that I disagreed with. It said something about when virus writers switched to open source in 1996 (like it was some sort of heavenly revelation) that there was proliferation in macro viruses. This may be true. But its more likely due to the rise of people who are using IE and Outlook for their net browsing and email reading.
Oh well, if nothing else the cDc by releasing the source code will actually FORCE microsoft to patch the whole and release patches that detect the software.
Serious mis-interpretation going one here (Score:4)
The article says that because Back Orifice is open source, there will be more variants of Back Ofifice, and that this will be more of a problem for virus detection vendors.
However, the security problem exploited by Back Orifice is Microsoft's fault. The release of Back Orifice is an attempt to force Microsoft to deal with its security problems.
Folks, if you are running software that has wide-open security problems, like Back Office, and the vendor won't help you except to give you sorry band-aids like virus detection software, it's time for you to lean on that vendor. There is no reason for Microsoft to continue to leave the barn door open - they are every bit as guilty as the computer criminals who exploit that, and in a just world MS executives would be charged, tried, and jailed for the computer crime they have facilitated.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Dogs and cats.. living together.. MASS HYSTERIA! (Score:3)
Basically BO enables a single-user system to act with some of the functionality of a multi-user system. Something, Windows 9x definitely doesn't have the security for. Windows NT has some protection in this realm, but still, not enough for a multi-user system. They were never designed to be multi-user systems. But then again, a root kit will enable the same functions on a linux box as this does on a Windows box, it just may be a bit more of a challenge to get the thing installed.
One interesting flaw (well, IMHO it's a flaw) that this could potentially exploit with the right plug-in, is a feature of the MS Crypto-API that will release any certificates installed in the system. If someone teaches the BO doggy a new trick to extract certificates (which as a process of the user, it has the right to do, WITHOUT authentication) there could potentially be a big problem with digital signatures, which are now becoming accepted as substitutes for "wet" signatures (think: paper and pen).
Oh.. think of the possibilities..
P.S. - I am a spelling and grammer genius. Any errors you think you see in this document are probably just transmition errors, and most likely your fault.
Re:FUD? (Score:3)
Cheers,
Joshua.
Did you people read the article? (Score:3)
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
Re:The real Trojan Horse (Score:4)
Sorry
--
Re:The real Trojan Horse (Score:3)
Beware goddesses bearing apples.
What they really mean... (Score:3)
Is the bo2k open source? Apparently. Will that help it's proliferation? Probably, although as far as I have read it is made to be particularly evasive in the first place. Does this have any relevance to the common usage of the term "open source" and the people who will be drawn to read the article based upon it's use of this term? Of course not.
To make matters worse, and to muddy the waters to a point obvious to anyone reading the proliferation of comments on this topic, this article refers to bo2k as a trojan horse. This is completely and totally untrue and misleading. A trojan horse is a program that imbeds itself in another, allowing itself to be executed (usually unnoticed) when the enclosing program is run. Such a practice is devious and obviously viral and totally unlike this program.
Back Orifice's server is an executable program that runs in and of itself. It does so very quietly and (due to, in my opinion, an oversite on Microsoft's development) is difficult to detect. It is a server program, an application, and in no way a trojan horse.
The reason this has muddied the waters, at least at slashdot, is that the image of a trojan horse in open source software (in other words, offending source code placed unnoticed in trusted source code) provokes most open source advocates to bring up the issue of peer review's ability to eliminate such 'trojan horses.' These arguments, though accurate, are completely irrelevant when one considers that there are not trojan horses (either in source code or executable form) involved.
But the article did what was intended: It provoked many of us to read it that would not have otherwise. Congrats.
Oh, and as a side not: I have seen it mentioned many times that Back Orifice exploits security risks in Windows operating systems. Basically, this is untrue. I am not a Microsoft fan by any stretch of the term, but I find it hard to fathom people considering a server program, run with the equivelant of root privilages, as exploiting security risks if it can actually control a system. Telnetting (or more wisely ssh'ing) in to a unix box of any variety that I know and su -'ing allows anyone with knowledge of the root password the ability to control basically any aspect of the system in question. The two security holes that this exploits are the inadequate task management of Windows OS's and the overuse of administration-level accounts in doing user-level operations. Oh, and the execution of untrustworthy applications, which can not (except perhaps in the case of macros) be blamed on MS.
Thompson's trojan virus, and why not to sweat it. (Score:3)
- If the compiler recongized that it was compiling the login program, it expanded a canned macro that added a trapdoor - a canned login and password that gave root access.
- If the compiler recognized that it was compiling itself, it expanded a canned macro that added the recognize-and-expand-canned-macros code, along with the macros, to the new copy of the compiler.
You only have to compile this in once, after which you can throw out the patch and it propagates to later versions of the compiler. BUT:
- It only lives in compilers.
- It only works as long as they're being compiled by themselves, in a never-ending stream. It will NOT propagate to a new compiler implementation, such as making the hop from PCC to gnu, or being installed in a new version of PCC that was compiled by gnu rather than PCC. (In principle you could build one that recognized TWO or more compilers and could hop back and forth, though that makes it twice as fragile.)
- It will die as soon as a change to the compiler source renders the signature unrecognizable.
- Even if it is alive, it stops inserting trapdoors once the signature of the target program changes.
Rumor has it that this was actually propagated in the Portable C Compiler {PCC}, and was discovered and cleaned out when the guys at Berkeley wrote strings, and wondered why the compiler had the string "login".
Note that this is MUCH easier to do with a proprietary compiler than an open one. Gcc, for instance, is shipped in source, with a build file that lets it be built by just about any C compiler, not just an older gcc. Even if a Thompson trojan virus existed for gcc, it isn't inserted when you compile with another compiler, producing a clean gcc that only has what its own source implies and only emits what the target's source implies. (It's almost as if NONinfection was infectious.)
So even a security paranoid like myself isn't worried about trojans that aren't there to be spotted in the open source.
The real Trojan Horse (Score:4)
The lesson: Look inside the friggin' horse, you stupid idiots! And THAT is something you can do with open source that you cannot do with closed, proprietary software.