p2pnet - rss feed: Apple trouble: crash and burn
p2p news / p2pnet: Following news of a Java security hole that could allow hackers into Mac users’ systems comes further news that Tom Ferris has found a number of unpatched bugs in OS X.
Last December he discovered a heap overflow flaw in iTunes and Quicktime for Mac OS X and Win32 and now he says he’s uncovered new vulnerabilities.
"So I have been fuzzing a few Apple OS X applications and found some very interesting issues when fuzzing one Application, other Applications and Services also crash and burn," Ferris says on his web page.
"For example mdimportserver pops up a crash screen almost every few minutes. It really gets in the way, when your [sic] trying to break other Applications.
"Safari seems to be worst when it comes to parsing input correctly. So there seems to be some problems with the claimed solid as a rock UNIX OS. Getting Safari to crash in many different spots is trivial, as where Firefox is very tough."
The ’solid’ promise Ferris refers to comes in a header to an Apple promo page which declares:
"Beneath the surface of Mac OS X lies an industrial-strength UNIX foundation hard at work to ensure that your computing experience remains free of system crashes and compromised performance. Time-tested security protocols in Mac OS X keep your Mac out of harm’s way."
Anyhow, "I have been researching the AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) and I wrote a very basic fuzzer and it has found some very neat bugs," says Ferris.
"More to come later…"
Also See:
allow hackers - Apple Java vulnerability, April 19, 2006
heap overflow - iTunes, Quicktime, security flaws, December 22, 2005
Ferris - Fuzzing Mac OS X Applications, April 21, 2006
April 24th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Apple should open up the MAC OS/X source. Join the open source community and it will receive better beta testing and user feedback.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Funny how no one seems to have any “real” problems with these bugs.
April 24th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
This is awful. I’m sure it will be at least as bad as the last time vulnerabilities like this were uncovered. If this keeps escalating the way it seems to be I’m sure the day may come when something bad happens to a mac user’s computer. already drunken batman has made people lose all their open tabs in safari. Its worse than Windows in that those people don’t even use anti virus programs- I understand there is some problem coming up with virus definitions for such programs in OS X.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Since these are tests, the sort of thing that comes before “proof of concept” not many are able to reproduce these YET. YET is the operative word in this. Just because it hasn’t been done yet, doesn’t mean it won’t. If this guy can find them and announce they exist, then others will find them that have less than your security in mind.
This is the first step in producing bugs that allow hacks into the system. Unless Apple does something about it now, not only will you be hearing of unscruplious tactics using these methods but there won’t be any protections to keep them out. Apple is notorious for not having a lot of viruses and so there aren’t many appliciations to fix what hasn’t in the past been a problem.
Prehaps the worse move yet for Apple has been going to Intel for the chip. That makes hacking into it a lot easier because there are a lot of folks out there with Intel experience in taking advanage of weaknesses. Most of the problems with this sort of stuff have started surfacing since the change, not before.
April 24th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Wow. Let’s review:
• Mac OS X has bugs.
• If you do something to cause one application or service to crash, other applications and/or services can crash.
• An OS based on UNIX is not invulnerable.
Thanks for the update. Oh, almost forgot:
• p2pnet.net will grasp at almost any story, no matter how ridiculously flimsy, that denigrates Apple, simply because they have the audacity to require people to pay for music.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:02 am
> Prehaps the worse move yet for Apple has been going to Intel for the chip.
> That makes hacking into it a lot easier because there are a lot of folks out
> there with Intel experience in taking advanage of weaknesses.
1. Please identify how the “vulnerabilities” detailed here have anything to do with the processor, rather than the operating system and other software.
2. Please explain how both Windows and Linux have run on Intel hardware for years, yet Windows seems to have many times more reported vulnerabilities and security issues than Linux.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:36 am
As a Mac user for the last 15 years, I have yet to have felt the need to protect my Mac from any virus, worm or indeed any of the security issues that plague the world of windows users.
The article is both inflammatory and vague. What is “fuzzing”. And what is a “fuzzer”.
Tom Ferris claims that he has written one. Has he sent it to Apple, so that any neccessary OS patches can be delivered by Apple to protect us.
If he does not do this, then his motives and honesty can only be as suspect as the headline to the article, which I suspect is the spreading of FUD by frustrated and angry Windows user.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
It’s evident that you’re ignorant of Apple’s Darwin to have made such a statement:
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/faq.html
Darwin is an open source project and there’s already an open source community of developers working on it.
To quote Apple: “Darwin is the UNIX core of MAC OS X”