Re: Round One: "DLL Proxy" Attack Easily Hijacks SSL from Internet

[John D. Hardin]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, der Mouse wrote:

> Depends. Does it include the tools necessary to sign my own code?
>
> If so, what's to stop a malware creator from using those same tools to
> sign the attack vector?

How does the malware author get the private half of a public key you
trust for software installations?

--
John Hardin KA7OHZ ICQ#15735746 http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
jhardin@impsec.org pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
key: 0xB8732E79 - 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bother," said Pooh as he struggled with /etc/sendmail.cf, "it never
does quite what I want. I wish Christopher Robin was here."
-- Peter da Silva in a.s.r
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
53 days until the Slovakian Presidential Election

[der Mouse]

>> Depends. Does it include the tools necessary to sign my own code?

>> If so, what's to stop a malware creator from using those same tools
>> to sign the attack vector?

> How does the malware author get the private half of a public key you
> trust for software installations?

The same way you do, of course. Most likely it pops up a box asking
for it. Given how boneheaded most users seem to be, and given that
signatures will be needed on most software installs, this will be a
common sight to many users, and they will probably cheerfully type in
whatever is necessary to fetch/decrypt it. Look at how effective
phishing attacks are.

No, that wouldn't work against me (or, I would hope, you). But I
wouldn't be running such a thing anyway, and even if I were-- having to
type a passphrase every time I recompiled something would be
intolerable, and if it were automated, malware could automate the
signing just as well as my compiler front-end could.

/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B