January 16, 2006 1:55 PM PST
Windows Wi-Fi vulnerability discovered
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The feature is part of Windows XP and 2000 and was exposed as being vulnerable at hacker conference ShmooCon on Saturday by vulnerability researcher Mark Loveless.
Loveless claimed that hackers can take advantage of the feature to include a user's PC in a peer-to-peer network, giving them access to information on its hard drive.
When a PC running Windows XP or Windows 2000 boots up, it will automatically try to connect to a wireless network. If the computer can't set up a wireless connection, it will establish an ad hoc connection to a local address. This is assigned with an IP address and Windows associates this address with the SSID of the last wireless network it connected to.
The machine will then broadcast this SSID, looking to connect with other computers in the immediate area.
The danger arises if an attacker listens for computers that are broadcasting in this way, and creates a network connection of their own with that same SSID. This would allow the two machines to associate together, potentially giving the attacker access to files on the victim's PC.
Security experts contacted by ZDNet UK on Monday confirmed that the flaw exists, but said that it should not be a problem for those using firewalls.
Paul Wood, security analyst at MessageLabs indicated that users will probably be unaware that their computers have connected to the peer-to-peer network in such a way.
MessageLabs believes that users running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) are not at risk.
"This yet again is a wake-up call for those who haven't installed SP2. Any machines running a copy of XP without SP2 are saying 'Come and get me', as there are so many gaping threats," said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer at MessageLabs.
Get some protection
Experts recommended companies deploy a security policy, if one isn't already in place: "Any organization deploying a Wi-Fi network needs to implement a company security policy," said Sunner. "The potential victims are the road-warrior community. Does the in-house security department have a mechanism to check the visibility of remote machines?"
MessageLabs also recommended that individual telecommuters be given personal firewalls.
Individuals can also protect themselves by disabling Wi-Fi when not using it, said Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee.
MessageLabs advised the following:
"Users with Wi-Fi can disable the peer-to-peer facility by going to "Wireless Network Properties | Advanced | Network Access Point | Choose Infrastructure Networks Only," said Wood. "We recommend people only connect to infrastructure points, although some users may want to use peer-to-peer for head-to-head gaming and file sharing."
MessageLabs pointed out that system administrators can also mitigate the problem by blocking ports 135, 137, 138 and 139--which in Sunner's words "should be nailed shut already"--from accepting NetBIOS connections.
Day downplayed the potential of the attack: "Hackers are trying to class this as virus-like. You become part of the problem because your machine is now broadcasting on a peer-to-peer network. However, all this gives hackers is the ability to see other machines--they still have to write exploits. But if the user is patched or has a firewall, they are protected."
Sunner echoed those feelings: "I'm a purist, and for me the (virus) analogy is not rooted in reality. Could it be self-replicating? It's not really within the realms of possibility," said Sunner.
Criminal gangs were unlikely to target this flaw as it would be too labor-intensive to exploit, predicted MessageLabs, saying that it was "really a threat from script kiddies".
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.
See more CNET content tagged:
MessageLabs Ltd.,
SSID,
P2P,
Service Pack 2,
hacker
Electronics & Computers Deals here!
Windows apologists, you may now insert your explanations of how
market share created this flaw too.
It is survival of the fittest after-all, correct??!!
This is not vulnerability; it is just a plain old bug! Even if you ?exploit? this vulnerability and establish an 'association', you cannot do any damage to the user?s PC.
Second, this 'report' is BS. The author not only neglected to mention certain pre-set requirements, he also incorrectly stated how Windows handles infrastructure vs ad-hoc mode.
Windows does NOT automatically go into ad-hoc after failing to discover an access point. It will only do so if the user has set an ad-hoc connection in his system. 99% of all Windows users will never do this. The few that do, actually know what they're doing.
You would need to set MULTIPLE things in order for someone to actually access your computer. These are...
1- You would need to be using Windows XP SP1 or lower (or SP2 with wide-open file sharing).
2- The administrator account would need to be enabled without a password.
3- You would need to MANUALLY set ad-hoc mode. Most users will NEVER even know how to do this (even though it's not hard, most people don't understand what it does, so they'll never enable it).
4- Someone else would need to be in the room with this knowledge and the will to hack your computer.
Point is, you'd need to go WAY out of your way to set yourself up for a 'hacker' to reach your box through ad-hoc. But the linux people eat this garbage up daily, and they love it. Reason is they're as ignorant as the average Windows user.
It's so easy to avoid these 'vulnerabilities', even my 80 year old dad knows better. The non-windows users stray away from this OS because they don't know how to reach a porn site without overloading Internet Explorer with spyware and viruses.
I haven't had a virus, OR spyware in over 3 years! I don't need to use a crippled version of Windows (aka Linux) to avoid these problems.
If you configure your wireless networking wrong, you might have a problem.
In Linux, and about every other OS you _can_ configure it wrong as well. And, you can have some of the same issues. But, because MS Windows users are oblivious to what their computer is doing, they might be offended if they were actually allowed to shoot themselves in the foot.
Microsoft encourages ignorance. In their ignorance, users can make themselves vulnerable. Nothing new here. Nothing to see . . . Move along . . .
computers without SP2. If you have not downloaded this (or let
Windows automatically update itself) than you are either naive or
arrogant -- probably the latter because automatic update should
have been telling you for the past year or so that there are updates
available. I would have to consider myself a Mac fan (I even made
the switch) but even I have to agree that this artical is picking on
Microsoft.
When they show up, you know that the editors had nothing real to report.
"Trouble brewing in the middle east". "Congress split over tax issue". "Windows security flaw discovered". "Kennedy dies tragically".
Yawn. All this really just means "Nothing worth reporting happened today".
Such as the fact that a user has to manually set himself up for this flaw to be pertinent to his/her system.
Besides, 99% of the time, if you are a broadband user, and windows cant find your server, you get the auto config ip of 169 and go nowhere, except maybe to a few cache pages.
Some say XP SP2 and Windows firewall solves the problem; apparently Microsoft disagrees. But even if Microsoft is mistaken, hands up all who are prepared to bet the security of their entire corporate network on Windows Firewall, assuming of course that it is turned on. Even if Windows firewall has been turned on and locked by the employees' network administrators, users can easily turn it off (so they can play their favourite MPORG) by downloading software readily available on the Internet for this specific purpose. This is a real problem, not just for users who do not know enough to secure their laptops properly, but more importantly for their employers. For this and other reasons, it is essential that organizations define wireless connectivity policies and have the means to enforce compliance with those policies on all laptops used for and at work. Before anyone points out that my company "conveniently" offers a solution to this problem, I would like to offer that this is the case for every vendor of any security solution, and that this in no way diminishes the extent or veracity of the threat.
- XP sp2 not affected!
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by RTFM
October 12, 2007 9:06 AM PDT
- SP2 has been out for years. You can't buy XP sp1 CDs anymore. This is like reporting that an old MAC OS is vulnerable for something. Stop wasting eveyones time and report on such a non issue.
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