Windows plagued by 17-year old escalation bug

Back in June of last year, a vulnerability was discovered in the Windows Kernel which that allows untrusted users to take complete control of systems running most versions of Microsoft Windows.

The vulnerability resides in a feature known as the Virtual DOS Machine, which Microsoft introduced in 1993 with Windows NT, according to this writeup penned by Tavis Ormandy of Google. Using code written for the VDM, an unprivileged user can inject code of his choosing directly into the system's kernel, making it possible to make changes to highly sensitive parts of the operating system.

"You can in theory write to memory segments that are otherwise considered highly trusted and sensitive," said Tom Parker, a director in the security consulting services group at Securicon, a Washington, DC-based security practice. "So for example, malware could possibly use it to install a key logger."

The vulnerability exists in all 32-bit versions of Microsoft OSes released since 1993, and proof-of-concept code works on the XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and 7 versions of Windows, Ormandy reported.

Ormandy said the security hole can easily be closed by turning off the MSDOS and WOWEXEC subsystems. The changes generally don't interfere with most tasks since they disable rarely-used 16-bit applications. He said he informed Microsoft security employees of the vulnerability in June.

"Regrettably, no official patch is currently available (then late January 2010)," he wrote. "As an effective and easy to deploy workaround is available, I have concluded that it is in the best interest of users to go ahead with the publication of this document without an official patch."

Microsoft security officials - who are already working double-duty responding to a potent Internet Explorer bug used to attack Google - said they are looking in to Ormandy's advisory and are not aware of attacks that target the reported vulnerability.

Early this month, Microsoft did finally put out a security update patch to this bug, more than 6 month after it was reported. Laughably in standard Microsoft quality and style, this update promptly crippled some systems with the notorious Blue Screen of Death. The systems thus falls into a reboot loop. The only way to solve the reboot looping or BSOD is by removing the patch... or such was the conclusion of thread pertaining to the issue on the MS support forums.

And people wonder why I still claim Windows isn't a very secure OS.

Microsoft Windows bugs that could be fixed, but won't be

This is just a list of the bugs I observe in Microsoft Windows that are still popping up, more than 10 years after viable solutions having been discovered. (In the case of some bugs, the time is even longer). The list is short right now but I will update it as I find more, which shall doubtless occur in time.

The follow Microsoft Windows bugs that still exist because they don't care enough about you as customers to fix them. Instead they'd rather kowtow to the RIAA and MPAA with useful system performance leeching software you never wanted and will ONLY inconvenience you. Yeah, way to go guys. Give the people stuff they'd riot about if most people knew or understood it, but never fix real problems for them.

• Virtual Memory running low / running out. [Confirmed since Windows XP, until currently today (2010-02-06) with Windows 7]. It should be noted this still occurs on machines equipped with tons of memory.
• File System Fragmentation (with NTFS and/or FAT32). [Confirmed since Windows 2000 until Windows 7]. Let's not even start on the abysmal performance of Microsoft File Systems.
• Rebooting (still too frequently). Need I say more? Every single update that is security related requires an update, and not just those. Too much I tell you, especially for a system that is so horribly insecure.

This List is not necessarily Bugs, though they are still problems that COULD and SHOULD have been fixed decade(s) ago.

• Slow Windows Update Downloads. There is no excuse for this. Honestly, none. Not anymore anyway.
• Slow Windows Update Execution. I really forget how long these can take sometimes and just accept this as normal. It's pretty ridiculous when I take a moment to notice it.
  

Draconian DRM in Windows 7

Nothing new here. Slashdot already reported it but it bears repeating.

So, surprisingly, I was getting my hopes up for Windows 7. From all that I had witnessed from my friends beta-installation, Windows 7 seemed to be pretty good. Sure, it was a straight rip off from KDE 60% of the time, and the other part it was a ripoff of Mac (which itself is a ripoff of KDE). Nonetheless, Windows 7 seemed to be better than Vista.... which is honestly not difficult to do.

But now, comes the new and even worse DRM measures being discovered in Windows 7. Thank you Microsoft, for making me realize just what freedom in the digital world is, and thank you further for making me once again happy to be using Linux.

Best quote from the original article:
"...but locking your own files away from you is a tactic so outrageous it may kill the OS for many persons"

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/2259257&from=rss