full-disclosure - Re: PDF mailto exploit in the wild

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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:44:58 +0100
From: "Nick Boyce" <nick.boyce@...il.com>
To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: PDF mailto exploit in the wild

On 10/23/07, Gregory Boyce <gboyce@...belly.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Nick Boyce wrote:
>
> >> # To Disable mailto (recommended)
> >> Modify tSchemePerms by setting the mailto: value to 3:
> >> version:1|shell:3|hcp:3|ms-help:3|ms-its:3|
> >> ms-itss:3|its:3|mk:3|mhtml:3|help:3|disk:3|afp:3|disks:3|telnet:3|ssh:3|acrobat:2|mailto:3|file:2
> >
> > And now I'm having heart palpitations ... can anyone explain the
> > function of the "telnet" and "ssh" parts of that little registry entry
> > ?
>
> So that you can have ssh:// or telnet:// links within a document.

I guess you're probably right .... call me old-fashioned, but WhyTF
would anyone want their PDF document to be able to do that ?   I can't
over-emphasize what a Bad Idea that seems to be.  Adobe must be
insane.  "Lets get all our users accustomed to the sight of Acrobat
Reader providing links in PDF documents which can be clicked to cause
network connections to be made to remote destinations ... that'll
help."

I suppose a personal firewall would show the initiating software to be
the associated client, rather than Acrobat - not sure that's any
comfort tho.

As somebody pointed out to me off-list, the setting for these URI
features is "3" which appears to mean disabled ... but I'd still like
to see the code ripped out and obliterated.

Cheers
Nick Boyce
-- 
"The system is repaired when ordinary greed takes over from
extraordinary fear - and that's what we're working towards."
Prof Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary 1999-2001, commenting on the
Northern Rock banking crisis on BBC Newsnight, 14th.Sept.2007
My, what a high civilisation we've built.

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