Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
A vulnerability in Ghidra, the generic disassembler and decompiler released by the NSA in early March, could be exploited to execute code remotely, researchers say.
The flaw, an XML external entity (XXE) issue, was discovered in the Ghidra project loading process immediately after the tool was released.
Impacting the project open/restore, the vulnerability can be exploited by anyone able to trick a user into opening or restoring a specially crafted project, a GitHub report reveals.
To reproduce the issue, one would need to create a project, close it, then put an XXE payload in any of the XML files in the project directory. As soon as the project is opened, the payload is executed.
Now that's just embarrassing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22 2019, @04:14AM
An important factor is the degree of overlap between vulnerabilities discovered by different nations.
If there is high overlap, then getting the bugs fixed is likely to secure American computers against foes. We should do it.
If there is low overlap, then getting the bugs fixed is unlikely to secure American computers against foes. Bug fixes only weaken our offense. It would be dumb to give up our offensive ability for no gain in defense.
The usual case is low overlap. This is more the case now than it was in the past, because the easy bugs are gone. It is thus a bad idea for the NSA to get the bugs fixed.