Visit Apple Security Updates for details.

Reference:

iPad http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4291;

iPhone and iPod http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4292

Why important?

This will protect you from in-the-wild drive-by download hack attack!

JailBreakMe by comex (et al.) demonstrated a serious security hole that allows users to jailbreak their iOS devices simply by just visiting a website and/or tapping a link. This security hole is very dangerous, by just browsing the web users could be exposed from abusive sites that may harvest their credentials and information.

How it work?

Safari browser loads a crafted PDF that exploits the following vulnerabilities:

First, it is triggered by unrecognized font, the Compact Font Format (CFF ) Type 1C, which causes the second exploit code to execute. This vulnerability is referred as CVE-2010-1797.

<</Subtype /Type1C

Second, the value is too large for the integer data type to handle(refer example IOSurface property list below), resulting to execution of malicious code running as user to escalate to system or root privilege.

This vulnerability is referred as CVE-2010-2973.

So, an attacker entice a targeted user to open a URL. Upon opening the URL in Safari the PDF file will be automatically parsed and exploitation will occur. The file may also arrive as an email attachment.

Stay safe!

Recommended reading:

iPhone 4 / iPad: The Keys Out Of Prison by Axelle Apvrille

Technical Analysis on iPhone Jailbreaking by Matt Oh

Jeremiah Grossman has discovered a weakness in Apple Safari, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information.

The weakness is caused due to the AutoFill feature being enabled to use information from the personal address book card by default. This can be exploited to secretly disclose personal information from the personal address book card when a user visits a specially crafted web page.

The weakness is confirmed in Safari version 5.0. Other versions may also be affected.

Impact :  Exposure of sensitive information

Reference : Secunia Advisory SA40664

Solution
Disable the AutoFill feature for address book card information.

How? Show Safari preferences (press Command-comma or ⌘,) and uncheck the autofill web form.

Further reading:

http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-know-who-your-name-where-you-work-and.html

PoC : http://ha.ckers.org/weird/safari_autofill.html

Personal information exposed?   It depends on the data, here’s my browser result.

Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard Anti-Malware signature file ‘XProtect.plist’ has new definition detecting “OSX.HellRTS” in the latest Security Update 2010-004 / Mac OS X v10.6.4.

XProtect.plist is stored inside the Resources folder of a bundle called, CoreTypes.bundle.

CoreTypes.bundle contains specifications that allow Mac OS X uniquely identify data types, file format, associated icons and UTIs (Uniform Type Identifiers) as defined in the Info.plist file.

In this update (Mac OS X v10.6.4), there are two major update for Mac OS X detection feature (Quarantine and Anti-Malware):

1) Risk assessment for Safari extensions(.safariextz) is unsafe, which triggers Mac OS X quarantine feature and displays a warning “..Are you sure you want to open it?”.

This assessment is reflected to an XML file called System which contains risk definitions for certain file types and extensions. The risk assessment has 3 categories:

As shown below, Safari extensions (.safariextz) was added under LSRiskCategoryUnsafeExecutable key.

Apple recently released Safari  5 with support for browser extensions, and this security update make sure that nothing gets executed without a warning.

System file location:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/System

2) Mac OS X Anti-Malware signature file “XProtect.plist” now includes detection for  HellRaiser version 4.2 server application.

There are 3 definitions for OSX.HellRaiser. As highlighted in the screenshot above, it’s detecting 2 components namely: rbframework.dylib and RBShell.rbx_0.129.dylib, and searches defined hex strings for a pattern matching the Hellraiser server auto launch entry (adding login items) command.

The latest XProtect.plist time stamp suggest that it was updated on 24th of April, just couple days after the discovery HellRaiser 4.2 server (in-the-wild). Unfortunately, it seems that it has to wait for the combo update as released on 15th of June.

XProtect.plist location:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.plist

From Intego security advisory today:

——————————————————————————————————–

Malware: OSX/OpinionSpy

Risk: High

Description: Intego has discovered a spyware application that is installed by a number of freely distributed Mac applications and screen savers found on a variety of websites.

File Name: macmeterhk

This issue became serious in Windows because the default download is in users’ Desktop. Attackers can craft any file to look like a link file (.LNK) and or image file (.JPEG) to entice users into clicking it. Apple immediately address this issue in Safari for Windows 3.1.2.

However, Safari Mac OS X  users remain exposed to this vulnerability. In May 2008, Nitesh Dhanjani disclosed details about this flaw and a year later, while I was writing my paper for VB2009, I revisited this issue and found that it is still unpatched. I have contacted him and verified whether my findings is true, and unfortunately he answered “yes”.

Ok, two years later, again I am writing  and reviewing same old tricks, and found that Nitesh Dhanjani recently revisited this issue in his blog post titled “2 Years Later: Droppin’ Malware on Your OSX, Carpet Bomb Style (and Then Some!)“.

I smiled when I saw the screenshot and bonus notes, it reminds me how tricky it can get when it’s combined with other known tricks/exploits – makes it easier to get users’ click.

Example,

What is this monkey doing in my download?  Opss, carpet-bomb! That monkey is a trick, it’s not an image file.

Recommended reading:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/safari_carpet_bombing_bug/

Description:
A vulnerability has been discovered in Apple Safari, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of parent windows and can result in a function call using an invalid pointer. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary code when a user e.g. visits a specially crafted web page and closes opened pop-up windows.

The vulnerability is confirmed in Safari version 4.0.5 for Windows. Other versions may also be affected.

Solution:
Do not visit untrusted web sites or follow links from untrusted sources.

PROVIDED AND/OR DISCOVERED BY:
Krystian Kloskowski (h07)

Original Advisory:
http://h07.w.interia.pl/Safari.rar

Advisory Reference:

http://secunia.com/advisories/39670/

When there’s too much RAT (Remote Administration Tool) available for Windows, people wonder if there’s good and useful RAT for Mac as well.

The search and discussions about this topic goes on and on; at one point an online poll favored to continue the development:

A useful description of RATs that works in OSX can be found here.

The most recent/updated development is HellRaiser version 4.2, coded by DCHKG an Underground Mac Programming Team.

HellRaiser includes a configuration component, where the remote controller can specify the server parameters.

The server component is the application distributed to target OS X user. It requires manual execution to install and enable the server to run in background (hidden from dock). Once successful, the server component (or the slave) will report back to the master as shown below.

This is the same version that Intego recently discovered in-the-wild disguised as iPhoto installer.

How would I know if HellRaiser server is installed/running?

option 1: You may open network utility and activity monitor (/Applications/Utilities/) and kill the process.

option 2: You may open terminal, and type lsof -i (this will list running processes and its matching network/internet connection). Search dubious name and internet connection, take note of the PID, and in terminal type kill -9 <PID> (this will kill the process).

If you’re using Mac security scanner, then it’s best time to check for signature update! (most vendors detects this as OSX HellRTS)

The vulnerability is caused due to an indexing error in Apple Type
Services within the “TType1ParsingContext::SpecialEncoding()” method
in libFontParser.dylib when parsing embedded fonts. This can be
exploited to corrupt memory e.g. via a specially crafted PDF file
opened in Preview.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

The vulnerability is reported in Mac OS X Server 10.5, Mac OS X 10.5,
Mac OS X 10.6, and Mac OS X Server 10.6.

SOLUTION:
Apply Security Update 2010-003.

Sourced: http://secunia.com/advisories/39426/

Reference: CVE-2010-1120 http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2010-1120

Description:
Unspecified vulnerability in Safari 4 on Apple Mac OS X 10.6 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unknown vectors, as demonstrated by Charlie Miller during a Pwn2Own competition at CanSecWest 2010.

Well, the Mac security community is pretty much aware of this since early last month (February 03). The package we received is source code, which serves as heads up to security researchers of what’s to come.

The underground intelligence allowed us to obtain a copy of the code for the purpose of learning disinfection to help protect Mac users for possible emergence of this threat.

In January, I blogged about an observation where Blackhat SEOs redirection scripts checks the browser’s USER-AGENT to identify and redirect Mac user traffics – for the hope of monetizing it. Following this post, Dancho found similar trend, where Koobface gang is also using USER-AGENT to redirect and monetize Mac users traffic. This trend raised an awareness to security community to investigate and learn why these guys are monitoring and interested to Mac users traffic – and we got our answer, we recieved the Mac OS X ransomware source code.

Now the questions,

Is it a threat to Mac users? No (not yet at the moment), but YES – this is absolutely emerging threat in Mac.

Is it a hype? No – there’s no exaggeration, but instead the message should serve as an awareness of this emerging threat in Mac.

However, we have to acknowledge that there’s on-going offensive developments in Mac and Mac users should not take chances.


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="www.yahoo.com">
Hola
<script language="javascript">
setTimeout("alert(document.styleSheets[0].href)", 10000);
//setTimeout is used just to wait for page loading
</script>

Listing 01 – Apple Safari Stylesheet Redirection PoC

Cesar Cerrudo has discovered this vulnerability, and discussed that Safari wasn’t able to display the LINK specified in href value, instead it reads the stylesheets to redirect to a target URL.

Malicious user may take advantage of this vulnerability to steal sensitive information.

Be cautious when surfing the net!