Google security vulnerabilties stack up
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With four in the last week, is Google the next security buffoon? Analysis Google's desktop search application is vulnerable to an exploit that allows a determined attacker to remotely run most programs installed on a victim's machine. The flaw is one of at least four security holes to visit Google this past week, demonstrating that the search king, despite the god-like aura it enjoys for its pleasing software designs, remains a mere mortal in the security cosmos.â¦
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New PC indexing tools such as Google Desktop Search pose security risks to businesses that useÂ SSL remote access because the tools copy material accessed during SSL sessions and make it available to unauthorized people who later use the same PC.
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Ziff Davis - Google's phishing vulnerabilities could foretell new security threats for major Internet companies cozying up to the desktop.
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Plus: Google apps for your site, and HP's pretexting debacle.
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Just one day after Google's Firefox toolbar was revealed to have vulnerabilities that could be exploited in an online attack, a similar flaw has been discovered in Google Desktop.
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Google on Thursday fixed a security flaw in its Web search service that could have allowed malicious hackers to modify its pages. According to a report posted to the Bugtraq Security Focus list on Wednesday
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A security issue has been discovered in a common feature included in several Web browsers, including Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Camino.
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Considered important vulnerabilities that leave users open to attack in Microsoft&#39;s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows for desktop and server installations, the Redmond
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Google is working to fix a bug in the Google Toolbar that could allow criminals to steal data or install malicious software on a system, a security researcher warned Tuesday.The flaw lies in the mechanism Google Toolbar uses to add new buttons on the browser. Because the toolbar does not perform adequate checks when new buttons are being installed, a hacker could make his button appear as though it was being downloaded from a legitimate site when in fact it came from somewhere else. By spoofing the origin of the toolbar button, an attacker could download malicious files or launch a phishing attack against the victim, wrote security researcher Aviv Raff in a blog post on the issue.Raff has posted proof of concept code, showing how such an attack would work with the Internet Explorer browser. A Google spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday that the company is working to fix the problem.The attack requires many steps. First, the victim would have to be tricked into clicking on a Web link that would then pop up a window asking the user if he wants to install a custom button on his toolbar. Because of the flaw, this alert could look like it was downloading the button from a legitimate site, such as Google.com, even if it were not. Once the button was installed on the toolbar, the victim would then have to click on it and, finally, agree to download and run an executable file for the malicious software to be installed.Because the user would have to go through so many steps in order to fall victim to the attack, the bug isn&#39;t a critical one, said Marc Maiffret, an independent security researcher. &quot;While it is interesting, it&#39;s probably a low threat compared to other flaws out there,&quot; he said.Still, it was sloppy work on Google&#39;s part to miss such a simple attack, he said. &quot;They should definitely assess how it slipped through the cracks,&quot; he said.This is not the first obvious Google flaw that Raff has found. Last month, he showed how a simple Web programming error on the Google.com Web site could allow attackers to launch what&#39;s known as a cross-site scripting attack.Because Google&#39;s programmers didn&#39;t properly check the HTML generated by the Google search engine, Raff was able to create a specially crafted Google link that, when clicked by the victim, would trick the browser into running unauthorized scripting code. This type of link could be used to steal the victim&#39;s Google account or conduct phishing attacks, Raff saidThis error was fixed by Google just hours after Raff notified the company of the problem, but a demo of the flaw being exploited can be seen online.
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InfoWorld - Google&#39;s PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNS&#160;pinning that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week.
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Just one day after discovering Google's Firefox toolbar could be exploited in an attack, a similar flaw has been discovered in Google Desktop.
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Google's PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNS (Domain Name System) pinning, that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week.
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Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in version five of the widely-used Kerberos authentication protocol. The most serious could be exploited by crackers to gain root control to authentication servers.
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TechWeb - A new proof-of-concept code is circulating for a Firefox vulnerability that was fixed in Mozilla's security update that was released last week.
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(InfoWorld) - Google's PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNSÂ pinning that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week. This is the second security problem reported this week for the software. On Wednesday, researchers at Watchfire saidÂ they'd found a flaw that could allow attackers to read files or run unauthorized softwareÂ on systems running Google Desktop. As with Watchfire's bug, attackers would first need to exploit a cross-site scripting flaw in the Google.com Web site for this latest attack to work, but the consequences could be serious, according to Robert Hansen, the independent security researcher who first reported the attack. "All of the data on a Google desktop can now be siphoned off to an attacker's machine," he said. Cross-site scripting flaws are common Web server vulnerabilities that can be exploited to run unauthorized code within the victim's browser. Hansen, who is CEO of Sectheory.com, did not post proof of concept code for his attack, but he said that he has "tested every component of it, and it works." He has posted some details of how Google Desktop data could be compromised on his blog. Google said it was investigating Hansen's findings. "In addition, we recently added another layer of security checks to the latest version of Google Desktop to protect users from vulnerabilities related to Web search integration in the future," the company said in a prepared statement. Anti-DNS pinning is an emerging area of security research, understood by just a handful of researchers, said Jeremiah Grossman, CTO at WhiteHat Security. The variation of this attack described by Hansen manipulates the way the browser works with the Internet's DNS in order to trick the browser into sending information to an attacker's computer. "Once you can re-point Google to another IP address, instead of Google getting the traffic, the bad guy does," he said. Because this type of attack is so difficult to pull off and is poorly understood, it is unlikely to be used by the criminals any time soon, Grossman said. But anti-DNS pinning shouldn't be ignored, he added. "We should keep our eyes on it in case the bad guys shift gears." News of the attack comes as Google is trying to enter the desktop productivity market. On Thursday, Google launched a suite of Web-based collaboration software, called the Google Apps Premier Edition, that analysts sayÂ could become a competitor to Microsoft Office. The troubling thing about the attack Hanson identified, which he calls anti-anti-anti-DNS pinning, is that there is very little that can be done to avoid it short of eliminating cross-site scripting vulnerabilities on the Web. "This is really just fundamentally about how browsers work," he said. "If you allow a Web site to have access to your drive -- to modify, to change things, to integrate, or whatever -- you're relying on that Web site to be secure." Hansen and Grossman say that Google is not the only company vulnerable to a growing category of Web-based attacks. For instance, MySpace.com was hit when a fast-moving worm spread through the MySpace community in early December, stealing MySpace log-in credentials and promoting adware Web sites. "A lot of these new attack techniques are going to require the browsers to improve," Grossman said. "The users really have very little ability to protect themselves against these attacks" he said. "It's very bad. Even the experts are afraid to click on each other's links anymore." Â
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(InfoWorld) - Google Inc. has inadvertently given online attackers a new tool. The company'sÂ new source-code search engine, unveiled Thursday as a tool to help simplify life for developers, can also be misused to search for software bugs, password information, and even proprietary code that shouldn't have been posted to the Internet in the first place, security experts said Friday. UnlikeÂ Google's main Web search engine,Â Google Code Search peeks into the actual lines of code whenever it finds source-code files on the Internet. This will make it easier for developers to search source code directly and dig up open-source tools they may not have known about, but it has a drawback. "The downside is that you could also use that kind of search to look for things that are vulnerable and then guess who might have used that code snippet and then just fire away at it," said Mike Armistead, vice president of products with source-code analysis provider Fortify Software Inc. Attackers could also search code for vulnerabilities in password mechanisms, or to search for phrases within software such as "this file contains proprietary," possibly unearthing source code that should never have been posted to the Internet. Security experts say that the security implications of Google Code Search are noteworthy, if not earth-shattering. Skilled hackers may already be able to do this type of search with Google's Web search engine, but Code Search is "another tool that makes it a tad easier for the attacker," said Johnny Long, a security researcher with Computer Sciences Corp, in an e-mail interview. For its part, Google did not have much to say about possible misuse of its new product. "Google recommends developers use generally accepted good coding practices including understanding the implications of the code they implement and testing appropriately," the company said in a statement. Google has never said much about the steps it takes to cut down on this kind of misuse of its search engine, though the issue comes up from time to time.Â In July, Websense Inc. used a little know binary search capability within Google Inc.'s search engine to look for malware on the Internet. While Google Code Search will probably not have much of an effect on popular open-source projects, which are already heavily scrutinized, it could help ferret out vulnerabilities in lesser known pieces of code, according to Lev Toger, a software developer with Beyond Security Ltd. "Using Google's code search, it's much easier to find interesting code portions," he said via e-mail. "If your task is to find vulnerability in some random code, this filtering can save you a lot of time. " Â
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Security firm Secunia reported that the vulnerability affects nearly all browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror, Opera, Netscape and Safari.