MS Traces Duqu Zero-Day To Font Parsing In Win32k 221
yuhong writes "MS has traced the Duqu zero-day to a vulnerability in font parsing in win32k. Many file formats like HTML, Office, and PDF support embedded fonts, and in NT4 and later fonts are parsed in kernel mode! Other possible attack vectors, for example, include web pages visited using web browsers that support embedded fonts without the OTS font sanitizer (which recent versions of Firefox and Chrome have adopted)." Adds reader Trailrunner7: "This is the first time that the exact location and nature of the flaw has been made public. Microsoft said that the permanent fix for the new vulnerability will not be ready in time for next week's November patch Tuesday release."
NT4 was such an abomination... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes I feel like I must be the only geezer remaining who actually had the opportunity to use NT 3.51, so let me tell you: It was a GLORIOUS operating system.
EVERYTHING was client/server, and all the client stuff ran in Ring 3/User Mode.
Heck, you could even kill Windows, and run it as a multi-user "DOS" box.
But, of course, that meant that the video/graphics subsystem also ran as a client service, in User Mode, which [I guess] the suits perceived as being "slow", and therefore as being an impediment to the gaming experience which would come with the impending merger of code bases that we now know as Windows XP [2001].
So in 1996, some genius at MSFT decided to throw out all of the beauty and elegance and stability and security that had been NT 3.51, and to serve up, instead, the great big steaming pile of sh!t which was NT 4.0 [with its video/graphics subsystem subsumed into the kernel].
And the world was never again the same...
Re:NT4 was such an abomination... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, IIRC, it was Win NT 3.1 that had the initial full security model you ascribe to Win NT 3.5. Win NT 3.5 had already slid a good portion of the way down the slippery slope of Ring 0 code, including some of the graphics drivers. (Again, IIRC, it's been a while)
NT 4 moved a lot of user space Windows GDI functionality (as defined by Win 95/98/ME) into a kernel mode GDI API, which is single threaded btw, that persisted at least through all versions Windows XP, if not beyond. (This is one of the reasons why opening a 10MB networked file or attachment in Outlook causes your entire machine to lockup until it's done)
This was in contrast to OS/2, which continued to follow the original design criteria, and hence was perceived to be slower on the same hardware as NT 4 for single tasks, although multi-tasking was much faster on OS/2. I mention this because NT's original basis was the OS/2 criteria, which was then mutated to be able to support the Win 95/98/ME gaming solutions.