It has been quoted by Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and others that insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I could say that in our world of cyber security, despite all the headlines about data breaches and ransomware, there is no “insanity.” Products we used 25 years ago probably can’t protect against the latest malware. Someone will reverse-engineer someone’s code and ultimately figure out how to evade a product’s protection mechanisms for detecting or blocking an attack. Entire segments of the cyber security industry exist because there is no insanity. Those who create malware or tools that exploit bugs don’t do the exact same thing over and over again. Once we’ve figured them out, they adjust, and then we adjust by making our products smarter – until the cycle starts again.
When Stuxnet hit in 2010, it made headlines as a new kind of attack with massive geopolitical consequences. Microsoft released several different security patches in response, including MS10-046, to address the vulnerability in link files. Now, with the WikiLeaks documents exposure, it appears that a tool called “EZCheese” exploited a similar bug in link files until 2015. That tool change resulted from a set of bugs discovered through the Zero Day Initiative program that showed the original MS10-046 patch had failed. This forced a change of operational tactics to what was then an “unknown link file vulnerability” in Microsoft, which was likely corrected with the release of CVE-2017-8464. According to the WikiLeaks released documents, both EZCheese and its successor Brutal Kangaroo were designed to attack air-gapped networks similar to Stuxnet. You can learn more on Brutal Kangaroo and the impact the Zero Day Initiative has had on the industry by reading Brian Gorenc’s commentary on his blog: The Real-World Impact of Bug Bounties and Vulnerability Research.
Zero-Day Filters
There are 23 new zero-day filters covering six vendors in this week’s Digital Vaccine (DV) package. A number of existing filters in this week’s DV package were modified to update the filter description, update specific filter deployment recommendation, increase filter accuracy and/or optimize performance. You can browse the list of published advisories and upcoming advisories on the Zero Day Initiative website.
Adobe (3)
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Foxit (1)
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (11)
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Microsoft (6)
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Schneider Electric (1)
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Trend Micro (1)
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Missed Last Week’s News?
Catch up on last week’s news in my weekly recap.
