Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2008

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008 to all of you.

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Mozilla Launching Firefox 3.0 Beta 1

Mozilla Corp. Monday nov,19 has released the first beta of Firefox 3.0, but continued to warn most users to stick with production Version 2.0.

"We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release, It is intended for testing purposes only." Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's interface designer, said in a note posted to the company's development center.

But while the official word was for users to stand clear, Beltzner's personal recommendation was a lot less intimidating. "It's a preview release, so use with caution and don't expect your add-ons to work without some magic; but between you and me, I've been running on this 'developer preview' for at least three months, and have never looked back," he said in a post to his own blog.

Beltzner also touted several of the improvements in Firefox 3.0, including new security features and tools, a redesign of the bookmarking and browser history and numerous back-end platform enhancements, but he said they all require more testing and user feedback. The company has posted a more complete list of new features in the release notes it added to its Web site Monday.


On the security side, Firefox 3.0 adds malware check, a phishing filter-like feature that warns users attempting to reach a URL blacklisted for suspected malicious code hosting; one-click site information that displays site ownership; fixes for vulnerabilities in plug-in updating; and integration with antivirus software and Windows Vista's parental control settings.

Mozilla also claimed that it has fixed more than 300 individual memory leaks and added a new cycle collector to eliminate other memory issues. Firefox has a reputation for leaking memory -- consuming large quantities the longer it's left running, and ultimate slowing down its host computer -- although some of its developers have contested the claims, and even pegged the problem as one of perception.

Most current Firefox plug-ins -- Mozilla calls them extensions -- will not work with Firefox 3.0, a stumbling block for some who might otherwise want to test the preview. "Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect their add-ons to work properly with this beta," the beta's release notes read.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in 21 language versions from Mozilla's site.

DOWNLOAD FIREFOX 3.0 BETA 1

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Novell BorderManager Client Trust Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Secunia.com 2007-11-01 , release at their website a vulnerability has been reported in Novell BorderManager, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system.
The vulnerability is caused due to the Client Trust application incorrectly processing validation requests sent to the UDP port on which clntrust.exe is listening (by default 3024). This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow by sending a specially crafted validation request containing a Novell tree name without backslash or zero wide characters.

Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code.

The vulnerability is reported in Novell BorderManager 3.8. Prior versions may also be affected.

Solution : Download patch from Vendor
(http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=AuOWp2Xsvmc~)

6 Related Secunia Security Advisories

1. Novell BorderManager Unicode Encoding Detection Bypass
2. Novell BorderManager ISAKMP Predictable Cookie Security Issue
3. Novell BorderManager VPN Denial of Service Vulnerability
4. Novell BorderManager Proxy Potential Denial of Service
5. Novell Bordermanager VPN Service Unspecified Denial of Service
6. Novell BorderManager 3.7 SP2 fixes multiple issues

Other Release at 2007-11-01 from Secunia.com

Read more after jump

- Apache Geronimo SQLLoginModule Non-existing User Authentication Security Bypass
- Apache Geronimo WebDAV Arbitrary File Content Disclosure
- IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition SQLLoginModule Security Bypass
- Macrovision Products Update Service ActiveX Control Insecure Methods
- rPath update for cups
- IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files Insecure Permissions
- ISPworker Two Directory Traversal Vulnerabilities
- Novell BorderManager Client Trust Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
- Blue Coat ProxySG SGOS Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability
- WebSphere Application Server Community Edition WebDAV Content Disclosure
- SUSE update for cups
- CONTENTCustomizer "dialog.php" Information Disclosure
- SUSE Update for Multiple Packages
- Red Hat update for kernel
- WORK system e-commerce Multiple Unspecified Ajax Vulnerabilities

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New tools help hack into iPhone

By Robert McMillan

New tools help hack into iPhone

HD Moore, one of the developers of the Metasploit hacking software, is supporting the iPhone within the Metasploit framework and providing tools to run 'shellcode' prompts

iPhone hackers have some new tools now, thanks to HD Moore, one of the developers of the Metasploit hacking software.

On Tuesday, Moore announced that he was supporting the iPhone within his Metasploit framework and released software that would allow hackers to run "shellcode" command prompts on Apple's mobile device.

By integrating the iPhone into Metasploit, it will now be a little easier for hackers to gain access to someone else's iPhone, but they will also need a few other tools to succeed. First, they will need to create working exploit code, which takes advantage of bugs in Apple's software, to trick the device into running the shellcode. They will also need to create more sophisticated "payload" applications that can do things like remotely connect with the hacker. "It's a first step," Moore said of his hack.

With iPhone prices dropping and noticeable improvements in the quality of iPhone hacking tools, Apple's phone has become a more interesting target of late, Moore said.

And the iPhone has obviously hit a nerve in the security community. Moore said that about a quarter of the attendees at the recent Black Hat conference in Las Vegas had the devices. "It's trendy," he said. "It kind of creeped me out when I saw how many people had iPhones when I went to Vegas."

In fact, hackers have already developed a number of exploits that they claim could be used on the iPhone's Safari browser.

And security researchers have even demonstrated how the iPhone can be compromised. In July, a Baltimore, Maryland, company called Independent Security Evaluators showed how it could run unauthorized software on an iPhone by taking advantage of a Safari bug.

Moore believes that the iPhone's browser and mail client will be the best sources of bugs and he said that because of the components and information stored on the phone, it may end up being a more attractive target than the PC.

For example, the phone could be used to track someone's location based on information from cell phone towers. Throw in the iPhone's microphone, camera, and an Internet connection, and you suddenly have a device that could be used to secretly keep tabs on people, Moore said. "If you look at what you get by exploiting someone's iPhone, you actually get a lot more than you do from someone's PC a lot of the time," he said.

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Sabotaging Google

John C. Dvorak - PC Magazine

A reader, Courtney Cox (no relation to the actress), recently pointed out to me that the top results of recent complex Google searches turned out to be inane Chinese sites that were not even parking sites, just an assortment of keywords that somehow got indexed and brought to the top of the results list. After seeing a few of these sites, I have to wonder what's going on. Is it sabotage?

Let's start by showing you a typical site: http://vmk.wtoxd.cn/xmijotb.html (there's some annoying Active X here. So visit at your own risk). This site was the top result listed when the search term "reset mp3 player m240d" was entered. And here are the full search results , in which nine of the top ten results are these weird Chinese sites.

Courtney sent me numerous examples of this phenomenon, and it's obvious that the more specific and detailed the search request, the more likely Google is to list these Chinese sites. The issue has apparently been reported to Google, but if the basic algorithms allow this sort of result, even banning the specific sites will not stop this sort of abuse.

Right now the motives behind this phenomenon are obscure, unless it's being done just for testing purposes. You know, like underground nuclear testing.

I'm reminded of some news reports I read in The New York Times as I was doing some Civil War–era research in old copies of the paper circa 1860 to 1870. At that time, the telegraph was the hot technology, and it was being built out all over the country using telegraph poles and wires strung everywhere. During this era it was not uncommon for one of the telegraph companies to chop down the poles and cut the wires of another telegraph company. There were constant news stories about it, and this sort of thing still exists. It's no different than a phone company "accidentally" unhooking a competitor's DSL rig in the central office during the burst of open-access activity in the 1990s.

I remember my first visit to China 20 years ago, listening to the long lectures about how China intends to become a capitalist nation. The Chinese liked to say they were going to emulate American capitalism. Ever since then I wondered what that meant. Would it mean chopping down telegraph poles? The American way? —next: Gaming the System

When I see this sort of site at the very top of a list of Google results, I wonder how hard it would be to scuttle Google by gaming the system. I don't think Yahoo! or even Microsoft has thought of this. But if not, why not? Perhaps one of the two companies is indeed behind the Chinese sites. Who would know?

We do already know that Google is susceptible to Google-bombing and click fraud. Now we have this. We also know that Google's search results include far too many parking sites. So many, in fact, that there are brokers who will turn all your domains into parking sites for a revenue split. You've all seen these parking sites. Many are done as typo sites: Mistype a URL and you wind up at some site that is nothing more than links to various shopping and search sites that generally have nothing to do with anything. In some instances, these sites appear on the first page of Google search results. As far as I'm concerned, they should not appear at all. And while they're an eye-rolling nuisance to readers of PC Magazine, you can be certain that multitudes of rubes using the Internet think that they're real sites.

As Google gets bigger and more dominant, you can be certain that the competition will come up with some way to ruin Google and make it simply unusable. I have to assume that these Chinese sites, which serve no purpose other than to scramble Google, are a step in that direction.

On that note, I should add that entering "reset mp3 player m240d" on Yahoo! yielded worse returns, with all the results being weird Chinese sites—including one that tried to load a Trojan (caution!!) that AVG killed immediately. When the same search terms were used on MSN, there were no results at all.

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Vista Infected By Virus Stoned.Angelina

New Info

A batch of laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium was found to have been infected with a 13-year-old boot sector virus.

Those of you with a long memory will vividly recall the year 1994: Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain died, South Africa held its first multi-racial elections, and Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party. Oh, and Microsoft's operating system was the quaint, pre-NT Windows for Workgroups.

Click here to find out more!

But it was a year that also saw the arrival of a boot sector computer virus known as Stoned.Angelina which moved the original master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 9.

It would appear that this teenage virus has not yet been consigned to the history books.

According to Virus Bulletin , the consignment of infected Medion laptops – which could number anything up to 100,000 shipments – had been sold in Danish and German branches of retail giant Aldi.

The computers had been loaded with Microsoft's latest operating system Vista and Bullguard's anti-virus software, which failed to detect and remove the malware.

Although the infection itself is harmless, Stoned.Angelina will undoubtedly have left Microsoft and Bullguard execs blushing with embarrassment about the apparent flaws in their software which allowed an ancient virus to slip through the back door.

On its website Bullguard offered some reassurance to Medion customers hit by the virus:

"Stoned.Angelina is a low-risk boot virus that infects the MBR (Master Boot Record) of hard disks. This is a very old virus. Apart from its ability to spread from computer to computer, it carries no payload (damage) to the systems it infects."

It added that the virus commonly spreads by being booted from an infected floppy disk, and causes no damage to the operating system.

Virus Bulletin technical consultant John Hawes said: "This is a reminder that old viruses never really die.

"Malware that's been off the radar for years often pops up when least expected, after someone digs out an old floppy or boots up an ancient system, and security firms have a duty to maintain protection against older threats for just this kind of eventuality."

Original source

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