Microsoft Research team has reported bugs in other vendors' products, with the two latest being a vulnerability in Google's Picassa and a bug in Facebook that could lead to the compromise of a user's account.
The bug in Picasa that the MSR team found could allow an attacker to gain complete control of a user's machine if he could persuade the victim into downloading a malicious JPEG file. It's not a complex exploitation scenario, and in the current age of people sharing, downloading, emailing and re-posting photos on a a lot of networks and platforms, it might not be too difficult for an attacker to do so.
"A vulnerability exists in the way that Picasa handles certain specially crafted JPEG images. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause Picasa to exit unexpectedly and execute arbitrary code. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights," Microsoft said in its advisory.
The vulnerability in Facebook involves a problem with the way that the site implemented its protection against clickjacking attacks. An attacker could use the vulnerability to gain full access to a victim's account.
"A vulnerability exists in the way Facebook.com had previously implemented protection against clickjacking attacks. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to circumvent Facebook privacy settings and expose potentially sensitive user information. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of a user’s Facebook.com account and could perform any action on behalf of the user such as read potentially sensitive data, change data, and delete contacts," the MVR advisory said.
Facebook has fixed the problem.
Tweet