Apple Patch Released, But Is It Enough?

entenman writes "Apple Computer's security update train rumbled into the station with fixes for a whopping 43 Mac OS X and QuickTime vulnerabilities. The Security Update patches 31 flaws in the Mac OS X, most of them serious enough to cause 'arbitrary code execution attacks.'" Unfortunately, InfoWorldMike writes "InfoWorld.com reports that Independent researcher Tom Ferris said there were still holes in Safari, QuickTime, and iTunes that he reported to Apple but were not patched in the latest release on Thursday. Ferris told InfoWorld he is considering releasing the details of the unpatched holes on May 14 on his Web site. He also says he has found new holes in OS X affecting TIFF format files and BOMArchiver, an application used to compress files. He did not provide details about the flaws or proof of their existence."

Stupidity

[Phroggy (441)]

and there is debate about whether Apple's shift to the same Intel architecture used by Microsoft Windows will change the security posture of Mac systems.

Let's settle this debate.

No.

Changing CPU architectures will have absolutely effect on security.

Switching to Intel will make it easier for game developers to port their code, which will lead to more games available for the Mac. This, combined with the ability to dual-boot to Windows and eventually the ability to run Windows apps through virtualization, makes the Mac platform more appealing to consumers, which will probably lead to an increase in Apple's market share. This could lead to more malware creators taking an interest in the Mac platform, which would lead to more security holes in Mac OS X being exploited (which is not the same as more security holes existing).

Re:Stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you underestimate the importance of assembly language when coding exploits. There are plenty of crackers out there who know x86 ASM. There are *far* fewer who know PPC ASM.

You have to make the initial exploit to get "in." Once you are in you can use most standard unix libraries to do whatever you want. The hard part with PPC was finding someone who knew how to code the inital exploiit and the carefully crafted shellcode (with no null bytes, etc.). With Mac moving to Intel this part is MUCh easier for the people who know x86 ASM.

Re:Stupidity

[CODiNE (27417)]

You mentioned avoiding null bytes, I seem to recall reading that on PPC that's much harder to pull off because of many RISC ops tend to have a byte of null padding that smaller CISC ops don't need. So besides having to learn a new asm, its also much harder to exploit... PPC did have a real advantage here.

Re:Stupidity

[dfghjk (711126)]

no. the whole point of risc is an instruction set that's easier to execute. that includes uniform size but not necessarily smaller.

Only learning that first assembly language is hard

[AHumbleOpinion (546848)]

I think you underestimate the importance of assembly language when coding exploits. There are plenty of crackers out there who know x86 ASM. There are *far* fewer who know PPC ASM.

I think you overestimate the effort required to learn PPC once you know x86. The first assembly language you learn is difficult, especially if it is x86, but for subsequent ones it is far less difficult. After many years of x86 I wrote my first serious PPC code, it beat Apple's MrC compiler quite easily.

Re:Security by oscurity

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

I think someone hacked your spellchecker and caused a buffer overflow. I'd look into it, no matter how oscure it is.

Re:Security by oscurity

[steeviant (677315)]

I'm so sick of hearing people tout this crap over and over... the truth is that security by obscurity does work, and you just highlighted that it does in fact work by noting that there are far fewer people attacking PPC than x86, that situation is only going to get better not worse, with Apple moving away from the PPC platform.

Ever since my company made it policy to move SSH away from the standard ports, the number of dictionary attacks and exploits has gone down from upwards of 20 a day across all our machines down to zero (0). Even though any automated scanning tool worth it's salt could easily identify that it's SSH running on an obscure port from the banner.

Security by obscurity is enough to break the default configuration of most automated scanning tools, which in turn is enough to stop most of the people out there attacking servers at random.

The great thing about using security by obscurity is that by effectively foiling most automated scanning tools, we limit our focus to only people who are genuinely trying to hack us, rather than just anyone, and can focus on tracking them down and turning them over to the authorities.

Security by obscurity does work, it doesn't devalue your other forms of security, and should be considered a useful and valid part of the arsenal of security defences that can be deployed to protect things.

Anyone who says otherwise has obviously never worked in a situation where their security knowledge actually made any difference. It's obvious that an SSH server getting blasted 20 times a day by attackers is at least 20 times more likely to be hacked than one that's hit 0 times a day, and security by obscurity can make that difference.

Re:Security by oscurity

[angst_ridden_hipster (23104)]

I agree that people repeat that "security by obscurity doesn't work" without really understanding the concept. I mean, what is a password but an obscured piece of information? Still, the origin of the phrase is attacking the idea that an obscured algorithm will protect you; you have to assume that an attacker will capture one of your en/de-cryption devices, and learn the algorithm.

That being said, I disagree with your assertion that 20 dictionary attacks a day is 20 times more likely to get into an SSH server than 0 dictionary attacks. If your passwords are any good, they won't get in either way.

Yes, your "obscure" port protects you from the dumber automated scripts. That could buy you a little time if a genuine vulnerability shows up in the sshd. But it's only a matter of time before the stupid scripts scan for sshd on other ports.

Then you'll have to switch to port knocking ;)

Re:Security by oscurity

[steeviant (677315)]

Heh, we have yet to encounter even a port scan on our obscure SSH port, let alone any kind of attack, so it's safe to say that script kiddies don't want to spend the time scanning all 65,000 ports on every computer when they can get a similar yield by only harvesting those computers that answer on port 22.

It's also probably safe to assume that if someone has the intelligence to change the port that SSH is listening on that they are also clever enough to keep it up to date and securely configured. :)

Moving your potentially vulnerable services to a different port is effectively putting yourself in the too-hard basket as far as auto-scanning script kiddies are concerned, but doesn't do anything to stop attackers who are targetting you.

Unfortunately the soft pink human underbelly of your network is the most glaring weak point for attackers targetting your systems, and we can't really firewall their voice-boxes and fingers if we expect to keep doing business.

Re:Security by oscurity

[angst_ridden_hipster (23104)]

Heh, we have yet to encounter even a port scan on our obscure SSH port, let alone any kind of attack, so it's safe to say that script kiddies don't want to spend the time scanning all 65,000 ports on every computer when they can get a similar yield by only harvesting those computers that answer on port 22.

True, especially since it's easier to defend against broad, repeated scans (assuming they don't have a good way of doing it from distributed hosts).

Still, I'd argue your defense isn't as much one of obscur

Re:Stupidity

[neonstz (79215)]

Switching to Intel will make it easier for game developers to port their code, which will lead to more games available for the Mac.

No. Most, if not all, games today are coded in C/C++ (with maybe a tiny bit of assembler). The problem with porting games to the Mac is not the CPU instruction set but the available APIs. There is no DirectX on Mac. In addition many games are using 3rd party libraries so these have to be available for Mac too.

Re:Stupidity

[Have Blue (616)]

The truth is the Intel processor is a lot more prone to buffer overflow attacks

Bullshit. Buffer overflows are a software problem and have nothing to do with the CPU. The PowerPC would have been just as vulnerable, when running identical code.

And building your own PC teaches you absolutely nothing about discovering vulnerabilities.

Re:Stupidity

[ImaNihilist (889325)]

And building your own PC teaches you absolutely nothing about discovering vulnerabilities. Sure it does. It teaches you that all systems, regardless of CPU and OS, are vunerable to static electricity. Thus, the best "hacks" are to break into someones house with a ballon, find their PC, open it, rub the ballon on their head, and then start touching the motherboard.

Re:Stupidity

[Jared Lundell (874807)]

Buffer overflows are a software problem and have nothing to do with the CPU. The PowerPC would have been just as vulnerable, when running identical code.

That's not entirely true. Buffer overflows are exploited at the assembly level, not at the source code level. So the point is that, even if a PPC is running the same source code, it's not running the same assembly, since it uses a different ISA.

More to the point, the simplest and most common buffer overflow attacks rely on the fact that the user sta

Re:Stupidity

[iabervon (1971)]

I don't think PPC is different from x86 this way, but on HP Unix machines (don't remember the CPU), the stack grew the opposite direction. This meant that stack buffer overflows of buffers declared last in their functions (which is pretty common) would overflow directly into unused stack space, rather than into the stack frame's return address. So the attacker's data would go into an area that had undefined data anyway. I've had the exact same source code (with a buffer declared too small) overwrite a loca

Re:Stupidity

[LO0G (606364)]

There are processor architectures that make stack overflows orders of magnitude harder. For instance, processors with a grow down stack architecture are way easier to exploit than processors with a grow up stack architecture (grow down means that a forward memory copy can overwrite the return address thus enabling the attacker to control the return address, that's a classic buffer overflow).

There are other processor features that make stack overflows harder, NX being a classic example (also mentioned above). The processors calling convention can also help - if your processor operates with three stacks, one for parameters, one for local data, the third for data flow, it renders the return stack immune from overflow of local data buffers, and mitigates the damage that can be caused by an overflow.

So yes, buffer overflows are a software problem. But the damage that they can cause is strictly a processor architecture issue.

Re:Stupidity

[Ulrich Hobelmann (861309)]

PPC makes it much harder ... to run code after overflow since it'll clear the stack.

Clear what stack? The only meaningful difference between PPC and x86 regarding buffer overflows is that PPC has more registers (including a link register which won't be saved by leaf procedures), and that the x86 CALL instruction pushes its value on the stack.

A buffer overflow would simply overflow some buffer, and be engineered so that it will overwrite the stack frame's return address to call some other code (which is also in the overflowed buffer).

Now on Intel every procedure has a return location on the stack, while on PPC only non-leaf procedures do, but since all computation happens in the context of *some* call stack, there will always be a parent procedure that has a return value that just waits to be overwritten.

I'm not sure how PPC can "clear" the stack, or with what purpose.

Re:Stupidity

[dorkygeek (898295)]

Oh c'mon, how to understand is this?!! Kids who build their own machines are l33t. Further, h4x0rs are l33t. By the virtue of transitivity, people building their own boxen are l33t h4x0rs.

Re:Stupidity

[bealzabobs_youruncle (971430)]

"Also don't forget: most hackers have self-assembled Intel/AMD machines... that certainly counts."

I've built literally hundreds of PCs for myself, friends, family, co-workers and clients. I couldn't craft an exploit if you paid me too.

What purpose?

[samkass (174571)]

What purpose would publishing the details on his site serve, other than as a kind of security vulnerability "first post!" type of thing?

Re:What purpose?

[Phroggy (441)]

What purpose would publishing the details on his site serve, other than as a kind of security vulnerability "first post!" type of thing?

In theory, it's possible that black-hats have already discovered the flaw, and will exploit it without telling anyone. If they've already figured it out, then releasing details to the public won't make the situation significantly worse. However, public embarassment will prompt the company to release a fix more quickly.

I'm not saying I agree with this theory.

Re:What purpose?

[lancejjj (924211)]

Purpose? Easy... he makes money by promoting himself.

If you check out his web site, it seems that he's trying to maximize advertising revenue. Not only does he have many ads, he also has many Amazon referal links. In addition, he is directly selling advertising:

From his website:

Want to advertise on the Security-Protocols website?

Below are our rates:
Banner Advertising:
10,000 impressions = $75
20,000 impressions = $135
30,000 impressions = $180

Re:What purpose?

[flobberchops (971724)]

Banner Advertising: 10,000 impressions = $75 20,000 impressions = $135 30,000 impressions = $180 Slashdotting = Priceless

Relativity

[ImaNihilist (889325)]

Good thing I use Microsoft® Windows XP so I don't have to worry about things like this.

Re:Relativity

[Golias (176380)]

Whoever modded you down "Troll" has obviously not heard of sarcasm.

Anyway. The difference between Mac OS X and XP can be summarized thus:

Every time a potential breach of OS X security is discovered, it's front-page headline news on Slashdot.

If a new actual virus or worm comes along for Windows, making it ever more sure that you still can't even put a new Windows box online to download patches until after the patches you need are already installed... it's business as usual.

Windows users concerned about they penis size go on chanting "B B B But that's only because the Mac is less popular, so nobody bothers to write malware for it. Wait until the Mac gets more popular, then you'll be in a world of hurt!!!1!"

Whatever. The Mac is probably never going to see double-digit market share, and even if it does, it's still vastly more secure than Windows is, and you all know it. So there's no need to worry about such a scenario ever happening.

So I use Macs.

If the market dominance of Windows has anything to do with Macs being relatively free of haX0r attention, then I just gotta say to all you stubborn Windows users out there:

Hey man, thanks for taking one for the team.

Re:Relativity

[skinfitz (564041)]

Every time a potential breach of OS X security is discovered, it's front-page headline news on Slashdot.

...and every time an actual [slashdot.org] breach [slashdot.org] is discovered [slashdot.org], it oddly never appears on the front page.

Weird huh?

Re:Relativity

[Golias (176380)]

Wow. That was the best you could do, combing through past articles over a two-year span.

A virus which requires telnet to be on (it's off by default), another that requires ssh to be turned on (ditto), and a third which requires physical access to the machine.

All of which were hyped up on slashdot as if Mac users actually had a reason to be worried, when almost all of them did not.

Thanks for proving my point.

Re:Relativity

[BasilBrush (643681)]

15 years? Child. Yes in all probability you have been "hacked, rooted, afflicted with spyware, or even infected by a single virus". You just haven't noticed.

Re:Relativity

[Wordsmith (183749)]

It most certainly is possible. I won't go as far as the grandparent, but close. I've never been -harmfully- afflicted by being hacked, rooted, or infected with a virus or spyware. I've almost never run into any of those at all - but once every couple of years something crops up.

I've (very) occasionally caught a virus present on the machine before it was ever executed or did any harm. I've (very) rarely wound up with spyware - but nothing major, and nothing that couldn't either be uninstalled via its own well-behaved uninstaller or removed easily via something like adaware.

Why? Because I don't run or install software if common sense says the source might be shady. The one or two spyware incidents I've had were with semi-legit software - it probably told me in a Eula all about the nasty reporting it wanted to do, and I clicked through - that, as spyware goes, was relatively benign.

Now my old roommate's machine, with the same basic setup, was another story. It was amazing she could move the mouse with all the crap going on in the background from various malware. Different computing use habits, I suppose.

never been kissed (by The Grim Reaper)

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

"I won't go as far as the grandparent, but close. I've never been -harmfully- afflicted by being hacked, rooted, or infected with a virus or spyware. I've almost never run into any of those at all - but once every couple of years something crops up."

Well, so far as you know. One of my clients used to think that, too, and reapeated it as a mantra for years, until I showed them clear evidence that about 200 of their systems were under the direct control of a remote cracker during a worm outbreak. Hard d

Re:Relativity

[steeviant (677315)]

Uh huh, so lets phrase that a different way... you mention that you caught viruses on the machine before they could execute. Unless you manually check all the instructions before they reach the CPU then this indicates pretty clearly you'd be running virus checking software. You also mention the need to use adaware from time to time.

So to get this straight, you run an operating system that has so many security problems that you need to run at least two other programs just to make sure that you aren't infecte

what a ego

[falcon5768 (629591)]

Ferris told InfoWorld he is considering releasing the details of the unpatched holes on May 14 on his Web site.

I.E Im a giant penis and I would rather expose vulnerabilites that could potentially damage systems rather than wait for the coders at Apple to make sure everything is accounted for and put into a patch that wont effect other things that I didnt forsee.

Its one thing to find holes and tell Apple and people you did, and send the info to Apple. But I am so sick of these people who feel that if said company doesnt respond NOW they are then in the right to exploit said holes and make everyones life misserable.

Grow up kids!

[Deorus (811828)]

> Its one thing to find holes and tell Apple and people you did, and send the info to Apple. But I am so sick of these people who feel that if said company doesnt respond NOW they are then in the right to exploit said holes and make everyones life misserable.

What do you mean? That he doesn't have the right to disclose what he found? Does his constitutional rights make you sick? Well then I think that YOU are the one with a problem. You should be thanking him for warning Apple. I know many who would have kept it secret and written all kinds of worms just to make fun of fanboys like you, and I guess that's what you're really asking for with your complaints.

Here goes my karma... ;-)

Re:what a ego

[PhrackCreak (136718)]

Puh-lease.

1. Falco5768 is not slashdot.
2. There are at at least [slashdot.org] a few [slashdot.org] articles [slashdot.org] which are critical of Apple's security policies.
3. Apple has not actually stifled this person. They patched something. They may have failed to patch other holes. I hope they will work as quickly as possible to patch all exploits they know.
4. Note that the grandparent post is not yet modded very highly.

In future posts, please do not clump everyone on slashdot in to one unified entity.
In future posts, only include actual facts instead of implied conjecture into actions that have not occurred.

Re:what a ego

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

In future posts, please do not clump everyone on slashdot in to one unified entity.

Yeah, we hate that.

extortion?

[v1 (525388)]

I'd like to see Apple fix security problems as quickly as possible, but this guy threatening to release exploit information a few days after the first patch to go out after the notification? That seems like they are expecting an awful lot from Apple - certainly they want to take a few weeks to analyze their patch and make sure it doesn't break a bunch of things. Apple should not be forced to make an ill-prepared and possibly buggy patch release due to the threats of this "analyst". If he had given several months of warning I could see the justification, but it looks like he is doing this to get some publicity because he knows Apple won't rush something like this, not to the degree this fellow is demanding.

Re:extortion?

[I'm Don Giovanni (598558)]

"That seems like they are expecting an awful lot from Apple "

Well, Apple *is* advertising their security in their latest ads, so they should have no problems meeting these expectations.

Re:extortion?

[NightHwk1 (172799)]

Oh, come on. Even the mighty OpenBSD has had vulnerabilities. It's a little unrealistic to expect every piece of software (or even just the stuff distributed with an OS) to be perfectly secure and bug-free.

Or maybe having an open-source license excuses them from your standards?

Plus, posting exploit information before sending a nice email to the developer is just irresponsible. How would that benefit anyone other than script kiddies?

Open "safe" files strikes again

[noidentity (188756)]

from the updater notes: " When Safari's "Open `safe' files after downloading" option is enabled, archives will be automatically expanded. If the archive contains a symbolic link, the target symlink may be moved to the user's desktop and launched."

OK, second time this "Open 'safe' files is a lie. WHY THE HELL IS THAT OPTION STILL THERE?" I never trusted that open from the moment I first saw the checkbox. I guess that's why they put "safe" in quotes. Buy our "free" product for only $9.95!

Is it enough? Yes.

[sootman (158191)]

Considering that there has not been one real, severe, in-the-wild, massively spread, substantial, damage-causing virus in the five year history of Mac OS X, I would say yes, the boys and girls in Cupertino are doing just fine. Thank you very much for all your hard work, and all naysaying columnists and pundits can go screw.

Re:Is it enough? Yes.

[NutscrapeSucks (446616)]

I'm trying to figure out your point in the relationship to the story and why it's insightful.

Are you arguing that it's "enough" for Apple to not patch known problems? That because Apple has a good track record that they can be lax? That Apple should imitate Microsoft's policies of the late 1990s and not take "gray hats" seriously?

If so, that's a pretty stupid and reactionary attitude. I think most Mac users, including myself, are not slobbering "macz rulez" and want Apple to take an aggressive stance toward

Would it be better if they waited another month?

[ShyGuy91284 (701108)]

The way I see it, they probably intend on patching the other problems, but they decided to get a decent amount done, and then release the update. Much like how Microsoft's once-a-month releases could give some time for the vulnerabilities to be taken advantage of (I recall that release cycle, I'm not sure if they are still done anymore though), if they waited for all patches to be done in this case, it may have prolonged the wait by quite a bit longer.

Not surprised

[frostilicus2 (889524)]

I think that this is inevitable. Mac OS X is a desktop OS, desktop customers demand shiny new features and Apple needs to compete with Microsoft in adding such features, otherwise it will fall behind in market share. These new features make for a supremely usable OS, but it means that development is always too fast. Security flaws are invariably human logic errors, and when a lot of new code is written really fast, errors are made. Conversely, take OpenBSD [openbsd.org], its pace of development is slow and thorough and due to its comprehensive code audit (which slows development) very few security holes are found in the code. As complexity escalates, so will the number of bugs and until Apple's workforce is replaced with androids (Which I'm sure will have a negative impact on its cool reputation) errors will continue to be made.

Although inevitable, we need not accept that there should be quite as many flaws as there are - Apple is in a uniquely privilege position over microsoft in using the unix permission system and the mature core that mach and FreeBSD provides, it must not become complacent. Increasingly, it appears that Apple is becoming sloppy - There are reports of Apple not using automated bound checking and the such. Such arrogance is inexcusable from any developer, and as Apple's popularity increases poor security will invariably become more of an issue. Its time for Apple to seriously take stock of this issue.

Talk about timing...

[UOZaphod (31190)]

I enjoyed today's (semi-relevant) Ctrl+Alt+Del comic [ctrlaltdel-online.com]
 

Re:Since I hate smug Mac users, let me be the firs

[noidentity (188756)]

"Since I hate smug Mac users, let me be the first. . .to say hahahaha hahahaha ha ha ha ha ha hahaha hah ha hahahahahahaha HA!!"

Yeah, us Mac users and our potential vulnerabilities. All the potential data I haven't lost has really cost me.

And smug people suck, no matter what computer they choose.

Re:Since I hate smug Mac users, let me be the firs

[ZachPruckowski (918562)]

So 100,000 birds in the hand are worth 20 in the bush?

I mean, note the word "potential". There are thousands of vulnerabilities that have been exploited on Windows, and like 20 potential on Macs, and that's equal? The day you'll trade me 100,000 dollars for a chance at 20 bucks is the day I'll toss my Apple in the trash.

Re:Tom Ferris

[rackrent (160690)]

My only experience with someone named "Ferris" who happened to know computers was someone who changed his excessive high school absences from nine times (nine times?) to 0

Re:Quicktime?

[ATPTourFan (898906)]

The latest version of VLC, 0.8.5, is Intel native as a universal binary. You may want to upgrade.

Missing the point

[mrraven (129238)]

It's not that there are no vulnerabilities, all complex code contains multiple vulnerabilities, it's that Macs being set up with a user level account as opposed to Windows default admin account are much less liable to being actually exploited. The same can of course be said for most Linux distros which are also set up with a default user level account.

Vista will probably help IF it's ever released and as I read on here on slashot the way Vista handles admin tasks (at least in it's current release state) involves an infuriating number of dialog boxes. I'll stick with my mac for now so I can just get some work done (shrug).

I guess this is what I get for responding to a troll.

MACs are more secure, Apple's trying to fix that

[argent (18001)]

One reason *everyone* is more secure than Microsoft Windows is that only Windows has implemented anything even vaguely as bad as the ActiveX/Windows Desktop/IE integration mess.

On the other hand, just about everyone to some degree or another commits the sin of trusting untrustable files. Even the darling of the security set, Firefox, has an installation mechanism that involves executing files directly from the Internet without a user's explicit request.

Apple has "Open safe files after downloading" compounded by the unforgivable sin of treating things like archivers or installers as "safe" files.

I've written about this before [scarydevil.com].

On a security level, this is like shaking hands after sneezing, compared to Microsoft's fascination with running barefoot through a "Hot Ward" and snogging the Ebola patients, but it's still unacceptable.