full-disclosure - Re: [VulnWatch] Microsoft Windows NTFS Information Disclosure

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Message-ID: <42C46E2A.1040401@kc.rr.com>
Date: Thu Jun 30 23:10:08 2005
From: mattmurphy at kc.rr.com (Matthew Murphy)
Subject: Re: [VulnWatch] Microsoft Windows NTFS
	Information Disclosure

Melvin Klassen wrote:

>mattmurphy@...rr.com (Matthew Murphy) at Jun 30, 2005 12:01:59 PM wrote:
>
>  
>
>>However, an apparent error in the NTFS driver's code causes the file 
>>system to incorrectly assign disk blocks to files before they have been 
>>initialized.  Following a recovery from a system shutdown, uninitialized 
>>data may be visible in files from previously allocated disk blocks.
>>    
>>
>
>As far as I know, _every_ major Operating System has the same vulnerability.
>
>I do _NOT_ know of any Operating System that "zero's" each newly-allocated
>block/sector/track/cylinder of disk-space when allocating a "new" file,
>whether on disk, or on magnetic tape, or on removable media.
>
>  IBM AIX?    No.
>  IBM z/VM?   No.
>  IBM z/OS?   No.
>  IBM OS/2?   No.
>  HP/UX?      No.
>  Linux?      No.
>  MS DOS?     No.
>  MS Windows? No.
>  
>
I wrote a more detailed reply to Melvin off-list.  This response misses 
the point of the issue... which is not the fact that uninitialized data 
exists on disk (a known fact exploited by everything from "Delete undo" 
tools to forensic software), but that the NTFS accounting code treats 
said data as a valid portion of the file's content, thus making it 
readable to users without privileged access to the system.

VulnWatch Mod Note: Moved to VulnDiscuss, as I feel this to be the more 
sensible forum of discussion.  You may want to move the original 
response there as well, to avoid confusion.
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