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Google Chrome vulnerable to carpet-bombing flaw

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Google Chrome vulnerable to carpet-bombing flawGoogle's shiny new Web browser is vulnerable to a carpet-bombing vulnerability that could expose Windows users to malicious hacker attacks. Just hours after the release of Google Chrome, researcher Aviv Raff discovered that he could combine two vulnerabilities -- a flaw in Apple Safari (WebKit) and a Java bug discussed at this year's Black Hat conference -- to trick users into launching executables direct from the new browser. Raff has cooked up a harmless demo of the attack in action, showing how a Google Chrome users can be lured into downloading and launching a JAR (Java Archive) file that gets executed without warning. [ SEE: Google Chrome, the security tidbits ] In the proof-of-concept, Raff's code shows how a malicious hacker can use a clever social engineering lure -- it requires two mouse clicks -- to plant malware on Windows desktops. The Google Chrome user-agent shows that Chrome is actually WebKit 525.13 (Safari 3.1), which is an outdated/vulnerable version of that browser. Apple patched the carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2. Some Google Chrome early adopters using Windows Vista are reporting that files downloaded from the Internet are automatically dropped on the desktop, setting up a scenario where a combo-attack using this unpatched IE flaw could be used in attacks.

posted by Ryan Naraine
September 2, 2008 @ 3:05 pm

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