christop wrote:
I just skimmed over part of that video (but not the whole thing because it's too long for my short attention span
) and what I gleaned from it is that Linux has (or
might have) bugs at various layers in the kernel, such as the USB driver or the filesystem driver, that can be exploited by a malicious thumbdrive. This is in contrast to an intentional misfeature (Windows's auto-run) that can be exploited extremely easily (all that's needed is an autorun.inf file and a binary to run). Is that a good summary?
Of course, with auto-run disabled, I'm sure there are USB and filesystem driver bugs in Windows that can be exploited as well, but auto-run is just an extremely low-hanging fruit which is enabled on most systems.
More or less. In addition the Freedesktop specs define a way for removable media to define an "autorun" script or executable, which the relevant spec also expressly forbids from being run without asking the user.
elfprince13 wrote:
christop wrote:
I just skimmed over part of that video (but not the whole thing because it's too long for my short attention span
) and what I gleaned from it is that Linux has (or
might have) bugs at various layers in the kernel, such as the USB driver or the filesystem driver, that can be exploited by a malicious thumbdrive. This is in contrast to an intentional misfeature (Windows's auto-run) that can be exploited extremely easily (all that's needed is an autorun.inf file and a binary to run). Is that a good summary?
Of course, with auto-run disabled, I'm sure there are USB and filesystem driver bugs in Windows that can be exploited as well, but auto-run is just an extremely low-hanging fruit which is enabled on most systems.
More or less. In addition the Freedesktop specs define a way for removable media to define an "autorun" script or executable, which the relevant spec also expressly forbids from being run without asking the user. I'd say the thumbnailers on all OS's are the next lowest fruit and I'm sure most people wouldn't even suspect half of them.
TheStorm wrote:
I'd say the thumbnailers on all OS's are the next lowest fruit and I'm sure most people wouldn't even suspect half of them.
That's what most of the video was about.
If I recall correctly, Windows does not support auto-running from a USB thumb drive, but from DVDs, CDs, and external harddrives only. Am I mistaken?
DShiznit wrote:
If I recall correctly, Windows does not support auto-running from a USB thumb drive, but from DVDs, CDs, and external harddrives only. Am I mistaken?
Yes.
So then why, when I tried to create an autorun script for my flash drive a few years ago, was I told by Windows Help & Support that Windows does not support auto-run on USB thumb drives? Did they add that in since Windows XP?
Yes they have. AFAIK Win XP does not have autorun from USB Flash drives. Vista+ Does if I remember right.
Ahhhhh, ok, so Microsoft is just retarded. What else is new?
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