VUPEN Security has announced the discovery of a vulnerability in Google’s Chrome browser software.
Google Chrome has survived assaults at the Pwn2Own contest for the last three years. Now, French security firm VUPEN says it is unhappy to announced that it has officially “Pwned” Google Chrome and its protective Sandbox measures.
VUPEN uploaded a video of the browser exploit in action which bypasses all security features including ASLR/DEP/Sandbox, without exploiting a Windows kernel vulnerability. It works on all Windows systems and with the latest versions of the Chrome browser.
In the video, a web page is loaded displaying just a text message - “Your browser is being Pwned!” - and after a few seconds of inactivity (and without a visible crash in Chrome), the windows calculator application runs. According to the VUPEN write-up, the calculator executable is downloaded and executed.
At Pwn2Own in March this year, VUPEN successfully attacked Safari in much the same way. A specially crafted web page was loaded and several seconds later, the Mac OS X calculator application was launched and a file was written to the hard drive to demonstrate that the Sandbox had been compromised.
For obvious reasons, the write-up does not disclose technical information on the exploit, only to say that it is one of the most sophisticated codes they have used so far.
Result for: windows system
A recent update to AVG 8 has caused massive headaches for its owner and for many users who ended up with a crippled Windows XP operating system. At the core of the problem is a false positive of user32.dll, a vital Windows Operating System file, which the updated AVG 8 reported as a trojan horse. Upon the false detection, the AVG update prompted the user to delete the file to fix the problem, which in turn could result in Windows XP endlessly rebooting.
The problem affected the Windows XP operating system with SP2 or SP3 installed. It didn’t affect systems using Windows XP in the English language, but affected Windows installations using the Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish languages. Upon noticing the problem, an update to fix it was immediately pushed out.
“AVG is actively working to remedy the problem some users are experiencing related to the most recent update to commercial and free versions of AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 in some languages. A number of users who installed the update mistakenly received a warning that the Windows system file user32.dll product version 5.1.2600.3099 was infected with a Trojan virus and were prompted to delete a file essential to the operation of Windows XP.” a company representative said.
The Czech anti-virus company has posted a fix tool and further details on its website. For users who are unable to boot Windows after updating to the latest version, they have been told to, “contact their AVG reseller or ask a friend to download the information and fix tool for them.” This latest problem comes after a recent update identified elements of the ZoneAlarm security software as a threat.
