full-disclosure - Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack?

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Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:11:50 +0200
From: Thierry Zoller <Thierry@...ler.lu>
To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu, Jonathan Leffler <jleffler@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: When is it valid to claim that a
	vulnerability leads to a remote attack?

Hi Dan,

DK> There are a substantial number of file formats that are code-execution
DK> equivalent with no exploits necessary -- .exe, .com, .bat, etc.  You thus
DK> can't say that an executed file must not execute code, because there's no
DK> way for the user to know whether a file on his desktop is an .exe or
DK> something else.

Maybe I misunderstand what you are saying but - Isn't the point in this
case is that  running  binary  files  mapped  as executables  is  not
exploiting  a  vulnerability  in  a  third party application ?

I understood that Jonathan  was  asking  whether the exploitation of a file format
vulnerability    in   Product   X   can  be  categorized  as  remotely
exploitable - even  though  it  is not exposed to the outside and one can only reach
arbitrary control by indirect means.

I  think we can agree that yes, it is remotely exploitable and as such
should be categorized as "remote" in Risk/Impactt scoring systems ?

Does anybody disagree ? I'd be interested to hear your point of view.

DK> The key here is "escalation of privilege".  At the point you're launching
DK> formats, the privilege has already been granted.
If   you   could dive into this a bit more as I can't follow you here. I
frankly don't know any Access control logic where running  a  format leads
to the escalation of a privilege, per se.

-- 
http://blog.zoller.lu
Thierry Zoller

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