Kama Sutra worm seduces PC users

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Your statements were true 5 years ago

A reasonbly secured *Nix system doesn't run user apps setuid/setgid. *ONLY* a local administrator can hose the whole system;

While it is true that Win 3/95/98/ME were not securable in the way you are talking about, why is it relevant to today (or even 5 years ago)? That line of Windows is dead, XP came from 2000 which came from NT which was built with security in mind and has always behaved in exactly the way you described above.

Even your description of the apocryphal .sh file attachment in the e-mail proves my point. With which case will social engineering be more effective:
1) (Windows): click the link to see naked pictures of....oops, now your 0wn3d

There have been a couple bugs where this has been possible, yes, but Linux also had a PNG vulnerability that had an identical attack vector. I'm not suggesting that Windows is perfect by any means but you are delusional if you think that Linux distros are the magic cure-all to your security woes. Windows is securable, as millions of Windows users can attest to, end of story.

2) (*Nix, and I quote your post here): "Email a .sh file to every user who got infected with Nyxem along with instructions on how to set the execute bit and instructions on how to run as root..."

You laugh but there was a successful exploit a while ago that used password protected zip files (this was when email scanners were beginning to scan the contents of zip files). The user had to open the zip file, enter the password (provided in the email), and then double click on the executable... and people did it! I've actually counted the number of steps required to run a zipped executable from Outlook (Outlook strips out executables so it must be zipped to send it) and a tarred .sh from KMail (the .sh was tarred with the executable bit set). It took fewer steps to run the .sh file than it did to run the Windows executable. The point isn't that Outlook is better, the point is that Outlook is good enough to stop users from accidentally running attachments. Someone who manages to run an executable from Outlook went to a lot of trouble to do so and would do all the required steps to run a .sh script from KMail.

Posted by: NonZealot   Posted on: 01/24/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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