Category: Windows

Interesting attack based on malicious pre-OS logo images:

LogoFAIL is a constellation of two dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities that have lurked for years, if not decades, in Unified Extensible Firmware Interfaces responsible for booting modern devices that run Windows or Linux….

The vulnerabilities are the subject of a coordinated mass disclosure released Wednesday. The participating companies comprise nearly the entirety of the x64 and ARM CPU ecosystem, starting with UEFI suppliers AMI, Insyde, and Phoenix (sometimes still called IBVs or independent BIOS vendors); device manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP; and the makers of the CPUs that go inside the devices, usually Intel, AMD or designers of ARM CPUs….

As its name suggests, LogoFAIL involves logos, specifically those of the hardware seller that are displayed on the device screen early in the boot process, while the UEFI is still running. Image parsers in UEFIs from all three major IBVs are riddled with roughly a dozen critical vulnerabilities that have gone unnoticed until now. By replacing the legitimate logo images with identical-looking ones that have been specially crafted to exploit these bugs, LogoFAIL makes it possible to execute malicious code at the most sensitive stage of the boot process, which is known as DXE, short for Driver Execution Environment.

“Once arbitrary code execution is achieved during the DXE phase, it’s game over for platform security,” researchers from Binarly, the security firm that discovered the vulnerabilities, wrote in a whitepaper. “From this stage, we have full control over the memory and the disk of the target device, thus including the operating system that will be started.”

From there, LogoFAIL can deliver a second-stage payload that drops an executable onto the hard drive before the main OS has even started.

Details.

It’s an interesting vulnerability. Corporate buyers want the ability to display their own logos, and not the logos of the hardware makers. So the ability has to be in the BIOS, which means that the vulnerabilities aren’t being protected by any of the OS’s defenses. And the BIOS makers probably pulled some random graphics library off the Internet and never gave it a moment’s thought after that.

Microsoft today issued security updates for more than 100 newly-discovered vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system and related software, including four flaws that are already being exploited. In addition, Apple recently released emergency updates to quash a pair of zero-day bugs in iOS.

Apple last week shipped emergency updates in iOS 17.0.3 and iPadOS 17.0.3 in response to active attacks. The patch fixes CVE-2023-42724, which attackers have been using in targeted attacks to elevate their access on a local device.

Apple said it also patched CVE-2023-5217, which is not listed as a zero-day bug. However, as Bleeping Computer pointed out, this flaw is caused by a weakness in the open-source “libvpx” video codec library, which was previously patched as a zero-day flaw by Google in the Chrome browser and by Microsoft in Edge, Teams, and Skype products. For anyone keeping count, this is the 17th zero-day flaw that Apple has patched so far this year.

Fortunately, the zero-days affecting Microsoft customers this month are somewhat less severe than usual, with the exception of CVE-2023-44487. This weakness is not specific to Windows but instead exists within the HTTP/2 protocol used by the World Wide Web: Attackers have figured out how to use a feature of HTTP/2 to massively increase the size of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and these monster attacks reportedly have been going on for several weeks now.

Amazon, Cloudflare and Google all released advisories today about how they’re addressing CVE-2023-44487 in their cloud environments. Google’s Damian Menscher wrote on Twitter/X that the exploit — dubbed a “rapid reset attack” — works by sending a request and then immediately cancelling it (a feature of HTTP/2). “This lets attackers skip waiting for responses, resulting in a more efficient attack,” Menscher explained.

Natalie Silva, lead security engineer at Immersive Labs, said this flaw’s impact to enterprise customers could be significant, and lead to prolonged downtime.

“It is crucial for organizations to apply the latest patches and updates from their web server vendors to mitigate this vulnerability and protect against such attacks,” Silva said. In this month’s Patch Tuesday release by Microsoft, they have released both an update to this vulnerability, as well as a temporary workaround should you not be able to patch immediately.”

Microsoft also patched zero-day bugs in Skype for Business (CVE-2023-41763) and Wordpad (CVE-2023-36563). The latter vulnerability could expose NTLM hashes, which are used for authentication in Windows environments.

“It may or may not be a coincidence that Microsoft announced last month that WordPad is no longer being updated, and will be removed in a future version of Windows, although no specific timeline has yet been given,” said Adam Barnett, lead software engineer at Rapid7. “Unsurprisingly, Microsoft recommends Word as a replacement for WordPad.”

Other notable bugs addressed by Microsoft include CVE-2023-35349, a remote code execution weakness in the Message Queuing (MSMQ) service, a technology that allows applications across multiple servers or hosts to communicate with each other. This vulnerability has earned a CVSS severity score of 9.8 (10 is the worst possible). Happily, the MSMQ service is not enabled by default in Windows, although Immersive Labs notes that Microsoft Exchange Server can enable this service during installation.

Speaking of Exchange, Microsoft also patched CVE-2023-36778,  a vulnerability in all current versions of Exchange Server that could allow attackers to run code of their choosing. Rapid7’s Barnett said successful exploitation requires that the attacker be on the same network as the Exchange Server host, and use valid credentials for an Exchange user in a PowerShell session.

For a more detailed breakdown on the updates released today, see the SANS Internet Storm Center roundup. If today’s updates cause any stability or usability issues in Windows, AskWoody.com will likely have the lowdown on that.

Please consider backing up your data and/or imaging your system before applying any updates. And feel free to sound off in the comments if you experience any difficulties as a result of these patches.

Mix TikTok with facial recognition, and you've got a doxxing nightmare, T-Mobile users report bizarre behaviour in their accounts, and a Windows flaw provides a new means of infecting users. All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the "Smashing Security" podcast by cybersecurity veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by Paul Ducklin.

An impressive array of hacks were demonstrated at the first day of the Pwn2Own conference in Vancouver:

On the first day of Pwn2Own Vancouver 2023, security researchers successfully demoed Tesla Model 3, Windows 11, and macOS zero-day exploits and exploit chains to win $375,000 and a Tesla Model 3.

The first to fall was Adobe Reader in the enterprise applications category after Haboob SA’s Abdul Aziz Hariri (@abdhariri) used an exploit chain targeting a 6-bug logic chain abusing multiple failed patches which escaped the sandbox and bypassed a banned API list on macOS to earn $50,000.

The STAR Labs team (@starlabs_sg) demoed a zero-day exploit chain targeting Microsoft’s SharePoint team collaboration platform that brought them a $100,000 reward and successfully hacked Ubuntu Desktop with a previously known exploit for $15,000.

Synacktiv (@Synacktiv) took home $100,000 and a Tesla Model 3 after successfully executing a TOCTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack against the Tesla-Gateway in the Automotive category. They also used a TOCTOU zero-day vulnerability to escalate privileges on Apple macOS and earned $40,000.

Oracle VirtualBox was hacked using an OOB Read and a stacked-based buffer overflow exploit chain (worth $40,000) by Qrious Security’s Bien Pham (@bienpnn).

Last but not least, Marcin Wiązowski elevated privileges on Windows 11 using an improper input validation zero-day that came with a $30,000 prize.

The con’s second and third days were equally impressive.