Security researchers from Foxglove Security have discovered that almost all recent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system are vulnerable to a privilege escalation exploit. By chaining together a series of known Windows security flaws, researchers from Foxglove Security have discovered a way to break into PCs/systems/laptops running on Windows 7/8/8.1/10 and Windows Server 2008/
2010[2012].[...] Hot Potato relies on three different types of attacks, some of which were discovered back at the start of the new millennium, in 2000. By chaining these together, hackers can remotely gain complete access to the PCs/laptops running on above versions of Windows.
Surprisingly, some of the exploits were found way back in 2000 but have still not been patched by Microsoft, with the explanation that by patching them, the company would effectively break compatibility between the different versions of their operating system.
Source: http://www.digitalmunition.me/2016/01/ya9jvvyujexmyccqfjrcj/
(Score: 5, Funny) by Marand on Tuesday January 26 2016, @07:33AM
Surprisingly, some of the exploits were found way back in 2000 but have still not been patched by Microsoft, with the explanation that by patching them, the company would effectively break compatibility between the different versions of their operating system.
Well, with the aggressive push to make everyone use Windows 10, that should no longer be a concern, right? So it will probably get fixed soon, and if doing so happens to break things for the older versions that are still supported, too bad, you should have upgraded before they kneecapped you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @08:21AM
I do recall someone's inside source stating "mistakes will be made". Back-fire potential much?
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday January 26 2016, @07:39AM
Who wants to be able to recompile programs anyway? ;)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 26 2016, @07:54AM
"Shocked, I say, to discover that there is gambling taking place in this establishment!"
"Play it again, Bill"
A kiss is just a kiss, but the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.
Casablanca, originally they tried to cast Bill Gates as Rick, after Ronald Reagan fell for a monkey.
We'll always have Paris!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @11:40AM
SysAdmins, can we have a "-1 Gibberish" mod category now?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 26 2016, @04:28PM
A bit too much of a literary/cinema reference for you, then? Casablanca, Free French in exile from the Vichy regime under the power of the Nazis? Some things never change. Vulnerabilities in Micro$oft? Never saw it coming.
Just because you do not understand a comment does not mean it is gibberish. There is another possibility. And a whole new world.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday January 27 2016, @12:46AM
Some things never change. Vulnerabilities in Micro$oft? Never saw it coming.
Should have rounded up the usual suspects.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 27 2016, @01:01AM
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday January 27 2016, @02:51AM
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
So we'll always have Paris.
We are talking about that Peter Falk movie?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 27 2016, @04:52AM
We are talking about that Peter Falk movie?
No! Of course not! That would be offtopic! We are talking about massive and long-running security holes in the proprietary operating system world! Although, now that you mention it, "Jeepers, Creepers, where'd ya get those Peepers" does seem to be an entirely appropriate musical number for Windoxe 10, much better than "As Time Goes By"
"The Cheap Detective" was a parody of a whole bunch of film noir detective movies, mostly starring the immortal Bogart. Wikipedia says: "The film spoofs Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, and To Have and Have Not. The scene in the restaurant with Peckinpaugh and Pepe Damascus mocks the opening scene of The Big Sleep." So Falk was good, but only good because he was mimicking the greater. Kind of like how NT was "based" on, oh, I forget. Something without so many security holes.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @11:06AM
You probably meant Windows 2012...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Tuesday January 26 2016, @11:14AM
Nice to see the exploit being given a nice marketable name as they've rumoured to have been doing for Linux exploits. I'm overly paranoid, but this does make me wonder if this is just another attempt to drive people to Windows 10, with them "breaking compatibility" with the fix only in older versions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 26 2016, @01:20PM
Seriously. But I highly doubt it since 7 is still in LTS and many corporate users aren't yet migrating.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday January 26 2016, @01:49PM
You're probably correct. It's most likely just some well deserved karma.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2016, @12:23PM
If compatibility means you should be able to hack all the systems the same way...
of course, they should never fix it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frrubi on Tuesday January 26 2016, @02:38PM
I'm horrible with technology, however, with the rise of microshaft winblows disseminating everything you do, in, on, and around their OS. Even I knew that it was time to switch to Linux, it's been a long and disparaging road, no doubt. I'm finally getting the hang of things, to be cliche; if a dummy shit kicker army guy like myself can make the switch, anyone can do it!
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Tuesday January 26 2016, @06:44PM
Those of us running Windows Vista are excluded! Ha! Now I'll just be busy waiting 10 minutes to copy five files aaaaand...
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 27 2016, @07:37PM
Nope, they just didn't feel it was worth mentioning you three.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday January 27 2016, @01:08AM
And read the TFA and the referenced "security researchers" blog posting.
Once again, it's odd that no reference to or report creating a CVE entry was forthcoming.
IIUC, the exploit chains three vulnerabilities (each of which requires that the local system is pretty much unsecured in out-of-the-box fashion), and must first gain local access (physical access or inducing the victim to download/install software).
Once that's accomplished, the exploit requires NBNS (NetBios Name service, deprecated for quite some time -- in fact, any corporate environment should have disabled this at least a decade ago) and a deprecated (v1) version of NTLM (again, this should have been disabled ages ago).
Once the exploit has successfully been performed, arbitrary code can indeed be run as a *local* administrator on the victim system.
While this is (IMHO) an interesting extension of work done by Google Project Zero [google.com] a couple of years ago, there's nothing really new except the authors' desire for publicity.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr