http://www.informationweek.com/security/vulnerabilities/sophos-av-teardown-reveals-critical-vuln/240062599 By Mathew J. Schwartz InformationWeek November 07, 2012 Sophos has patched seven vulnerabilities in its antivirus software, including bugs that could be used by an attacker to take control of a Windows, Mac, or Linux system. By exploiting the vulnerabilities, an attacker may be able to gain control of the system, escalate privileges, or cause a denial-of-service condition, according to a related security bulletin released the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). The vulnerabilities were identified by Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher at Google, after he reverse-engineered the Sophos antivirus application in his spare time. "By design, antivirus products introduce a vast attack surface to a hostile environment. The vendors of these products have a responsibility to uphold the highest secure development standards possible to minimize the potential for harm caused by their software," said Ormandy in a related research paper, "Sophail: Applied attacks against Sophos Antivirus." Ormandy said the paper focuses on "the process a sophisticated attacker would take when targeting Sophos users," noting that it applies to all platforms that Sophos supports, including Windows, Mac, Linux and their SAVI SDK product. SAVI SDK refers to the software development toolkit that Sophos OEM partners can use to integrate its antivirus application into other security software. [...] ______________________________________________ Visit the InfoSec News Security Bookstore Best Selling Security Books and More! http://www.shopinfosecnews.orgReceived on Thu Nov 08 2012 - 01:08:53 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Thu Nov 08 2012 - 01:20:35 PST