The Glider

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is advising travelers to avoid updating software while using hotel or other public Internet connections, warning that malicious actors are targeting travelers abroad through pop-up windows while they are establishing an Internet connection in their hotel rooms.

From the FBI’s advisory:

“Recently, there have been instances of travelers’ laptops being infected with malicious software while using hotel Internet connections. In these instances, the traveler was attempting to set up the hotel room Internet connection and was presented with a pop-up window notifying the user to update a widely used software product. If the user clicked to accept and install the update, malicious software was installed on the laptop. The pop-up window appeared to be offering a routine update to a legitimate software product for which updates are frequently available.”

The warning is a good opportunity to revisit some wireless safety tips I’ve doled out over the years. Avoid updating software while you’re using networks that are untrusted and public, whether they are wired or wireless. This generally means Wi-Fi networks like those available in hotels and coffee shops, and even wired connections at hotels. The only exception I make to this rule is when I have a device that is tethered to the 3G connection on a mobile phone. But even this can be dicey, because many laptops and mobile devices will switch over to available Wi-Fi networks in the event that the 3G signal dies.

There are a number of free attack tools that can be used to spoof software update prompts, and these are especially effective against users on small local networks. Bear in mind that false update prompts don’t have to involve pop-ups. I’ve written at least two blog posts about EvilGrade, a toolkit that makes it simple for attackers to install malicious software by exploiting weaknesses in the auto-update feature of many popular software titles. The deviousness of this tool is that it can be used to hijack the legitimate updaters built into software already installed on your computer.

If you must update while on the road, make sure that you initiate the update process. Avoid clicking pop-up prompts or anything that looks like it was launched from an auto-updater. When in doubt, always update from the vendor’s Web site. Most importantly — and Rule #1 of Krebs’s 3 Basic Rules for Online Safety covers this nicely — “if you didn’t go looking for it, don’t install it!” Also, using an update tracker, such as Secunia‘s Personal Software Inspector or File Hippo‘s Update Checker, can help you stay on top of the latest security patches for widely-used software, and make it easier for you to plan your software updates ahead of time.

Adobe and Microsoft today each issued updates to address critical security flaws in their software. Adobe’s patch plugs at least five holes in its Shockwave Player, while Microsoft has released a bundle of seven updates to correct 23 vulnerabilities in Windows and other products.

Microsoft’s May patch batch includes fixes for vulnerabilities that could be exploited via Web browsing, file-sharing, or email. Eight of the 23 flaws earned Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning no user interaction is required for vulnerable systems to be hacked. At least three of the flaws were publicly disclosed before today.

According to Microsoft, the two updates are the most dire: The first is one related to a critical flaw in Microsoft Word (MS12-029); the second is an unusually ambitious update that addresses flaws present in Microsoft Office, Windows, .NET Framework and Silverlight. In a blog post published today, Microsoft explained why it chose to patch all of these seemingly disparate products all in one go. But the short version is that Microsoft is addressing the ghost of Duqu, a sophisticated malware family discovered last year that was designed to attack industrial control systems and is thought to be related to the infamous Stuxnet worm. A patch Microsoft issued last year addressed the underlying Windows vulnerability exploited by Duqu, but the company found that the same vulnerable code resided in a slew of other Microsoft applications.

Separately, Adobe has issued an update for its Shockwave Player. Adobe recommends that users of Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6.4.634 and earlier for Windows and Macintosh update to Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6.5.635. Fixes are available for Windows and Mac systems, from this link. Windows users can tell if they have Shockwave installed by checking for an entry for the program in the Add/Remove Programs listing from the Windows Control Panel. If you don’t already have this program, I’d recommend keeping it that way. I seem to have gotten along fine without it for several years now, and going without it just means one less buggy application to patch.

As always, if you experience any issues installing these updates, please leave a note in the comments section below.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites may not be happy if a new service that launched in beta Wednesday takes off.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites may not be happy if a new service that launched in beta Wednesday takes off.

Microsoft's rootkit-busting scanner, Windows Defender Offline, has emerged from beta and now stands ready to unhose various and sundry clobbered systems.

Microsoft's rootkit-busting scanner, Windows Defender Offline, has emerged from beta and now stands ready to unhose various and sundry clobbered systems.

A number of readers responded to the story I published last week on the Flashback Trojan, a contagion that was found to have infected more than 600,000 Mac OS X systems. Most people wanted to know how they could detect whether their systems were infected with Flashback — and if so — how to remove the malware. This post covers both of those questions.

Screen shot of Flashback detection tool from Dr.Web

Since the discovery last week of the Flashback Mac botnet, several security firms have released tools to help detect and clean up Flashback infections. Dr.Web, the Russian antivirus vendor that first sounded the alarm about the outbreak, has published a free online service that lets users tell whether their systems have been seen phoning home to Flashback’s control servers (those servers have since been hijacked by researchers). The service requires users to enter their Mac’s hardware unique user ID (HW-UUID), because this is how the miscreants who were running the botnet kept track of their infections.

F-Secure Corp., the Finnish security firm that worked with Dr.Web to more accurately gauge the true number of Flashback-infected Macs, has a Flashback Removal Tool available for download from its Web site.

Where is Apple’s response in all of this, you ask? Apple says it is developing software that will detect and remove Flashback. Inexplicably, it has not yet released this tool, nor has it added detection for it to the XProtect antivirus tool built into OS X. The company’s advisory on this threat is predictably sparse, and focuses instead on urging users to apply a recent update for Java. Flashback attacks a well-known Java flaw, but it’s worth noting that Apple released the Java patch only after Flashback had begun infecting hundreds of thousands of Macs.

Update, 8:22 p.m. ET: Apple just released a new version of Java that includes a Flashback remover. Java for OS X Lion 2012-003 delivers Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_31 and supersedes all previous versions of Java for OS X Lion. It includes no new security fixes, but it adopts a novel approach to the debate over whether to temporarily disable or remove Java: “It configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application.” If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for at least 35 days, it will again disable Java applets.

Original post:

In its advisory, Apple said it “is working with ISPs worldwide to disable the command and control network” that criminals were using to direct the activities of the Flashback botnet. But Apple’s actions speak much louder than words. Forbes’ Andy Greenberg published a fascinating piece on Wednesday showing that when it comes to working with the security community, Apple is still a bit like a spoiled toddler who hasn’t yet learned to play nice with other children in the sandbox.

On the issue of security in general, Apple appears to still have its head firmly planted in the sand: F-Secure notes that Apple still has not shipped an update that fixes this Java flaw on OS X 10.5 (or earlier), even though 16 percent of all all Macs still run this OS.

While Apple stopped bundling Java by default in OS X 10.7 (Lion), it offers instructions for downloading and installing the Oracle-developed software framework when users access webpages that use it. If you have Java but no longer need it, get rid of it. If you need Java on your Mac only for a specific application (such as OpenOffice), you can unplug it from the browser by disabling its plugin. In Safari, this can be done by clicking Preferences, and then the Security tab (uncheck “Enable Java”). In Google Chrome, open Preferences, and then type “Java” in the search box. Scroll down to the Plug-ins section, and click the link that says “Disable individual plug-ins.” If you have Java installed, you should see a “disable” link underneath its listing. In Mozilla Firefox for Mac, click Tools, Add-ons, and disable the Java plugin(s).

Broken record alert: If you don’t need Java, remove it from your system, whether you are a Mac or Windows user. If you need further convincing of my reasons for this recommendation, I’d encourage you to browse through some of my past Java-related posts.

Adobe and Microsoft today each issued critical updates to plug security holes in their products. The patch batch from Microsoft fixes at least 11 flaws in Windows and Windows software. Adobe’s update tackles four vulnerabilities that are present in current versions of Adobe Acrobat and Reader.

Seven of the 11 bugs Microsoft fixed with today’s release earned its most serious “critical” rating, which Microsoft assigns to flaws that it believes attackers or malware could leverage to break into systems without any help from users. In its security bulletin summary for April 2012, Microsoft says it expects miscreants to quickly develop reliable exploits capable of leveraging at least four of the vulnerabilities.

Among those is an interesting weakness (MS12-024) in the way that Windows handles signed portable executable (PE) files. According to Symantec, this flaw is interesting because it lets attackers modify signed PE files undetected.

“In addition, the attacker doesn’t need to worry about controlling memory; once the user runs the content, the device has been infected,” wrote John Harrison, group product manager for Symantec Security Response. “The most common attack will probably be a scenario in which a site offers a free download of a specific program that appears to be legitimately signed.”

Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for vulnerability management firm Qualys, is particularly worried about MS12-027, because the weakness spans an unusually wide range of Microsoft products. Microsoft agrees, calling this patch the highest priority security update this month.

“What makes this bulletin stand out is that Microsoft is aware of attacks in the wild against it and it affects an unsually wide-range of Microsoft products, including Office 2003 through 2010 on Windows, SQL Server 2000 through 2008 R2, BizTalk Server 2002, Commerce Server 2002 through 2009 R2, Visual FoxPro 8 and Visual Basic 6 Runtime,” Kandek said. “Attackers have been embedding the exploit for the underlying vulnerability (CVE-2012-0158) into an RTF document and enticing the target into opening the file, most commonly by attaching it to an e-mail. Another possible vector is through web browsing, but the component can potentially be attacked through any of the mentioned applications.”

Other notable fixes from Microsoft this month include a .NET update, and a patch for at least five Internet Explorer flaws. Patches are available for all supported versions of Windows, and available through Windows Update.

Adobe’s updates fix critical problems in Acrobat and Reader on all supported platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Users on Windows and Mac can use each products’ built-in update mechanism. The newest, patched version of both Acrobat and Reader is v. 10.1.3 for Windows and Mac systems. The default configuration is set to run automatic update checks on a regular schedule, but update checks can be manually activated by choosing Help > Check for Updates. Reader users who prefer direct links to the latest version can find them by clicking the appropriate OS, Windows, Mac or Linux (v. 9.5.1).

As always, if you have any problems installing or applying these updates, please leave a note about your experience in the comments below.