Security and Proprietary Software

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This Week In Security: BYOVD, Spectre Vx, More Octal Headaches, And ExifTool | Hackaday
I learned a new acronym while reading about a set of flaws in the Dell BIOS update system. Because Dell has patched their driver, but hasn’t yet revoked the signing keys from the previous driver version, it is open to a BYOVD attack.
BYOVD, Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver, is an interesting approach to Windows privilege escalation. 64-bit versions of Windows have a security feature that blocks unsigned kernel drivers from the kernel. The exploit is to load an older, known-vulnerable driver that still has valid signatures into the kernel, and use the old vulnerabilities to exploit the system. The caveat is that even when a driver is signed, it still takes an admin account to load a driver. So what use is the BYOVD attack, when it takes administrative access to pull off?
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The Exim mail server was started in 1995 as a Mail Transfer Agent for Unix machines. Qualys audited Exim, and the results weren’t pretty. Qualys calls the result 21Nails, as there are 21 serious vulnerabilities found in the effort, many of which existing as far back as the git history of the project. While the report doesn’t include PoC code, they will likely be quickly developed independently, so if you run Exim, go update your servers now.
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Investment Scammer John Davies Reinvents Himself?
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Stadia Exodus Continues As Product Head For Stadia Exits
The troubling signs for Google's video game streaming platform Stadia continue. While I have to admit that I had really high hopes for Stadia, nothing about this has been smooth from launch to its current state of, well, who the hell knows what is going to happen to it. From a poor initial reception to questions about failed promises on performance, the conversation about Stadia quickly focused on the platform not offering much in the way of an actual game catalogue to play. Less than a year later, Google made this problem even worse by disbanding its own in-house game developers, leading to more fallout when Stadia could suddenly not support its own internally developed game.
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UK Court Overturns 39 Convictions Of Post Office Workers Caused By Buggy Software
Never underestimate the power of technology to destroy lives. Flawed software used for the last 20 years by the UK postal service resulted in dozens of wrongful criminal convictions which are only just now being overturned.
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BT Smart Hub 2 router 'disrupting' home networks
Users are complaining that any devices not linked to the same frequency, such as a phone and a speaker, are refusing to communicate with each other.
BT is offering firmware updates to those affected.
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U.S., U.K. Reveal Code Flaws Abused by SolarWinds [Crackers]
The report contains technical resources about the group’s tactics, including breaching email in order to find passwords and other information to further infiltrate organizations, in addition to providing software flaws commonly exploited by the [crackers]. It also offers details about how network administrators can counter the attackers’ tactics.
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In Epic v Apple, everybody is losing at the game of defining games
What is the difference between an “app” and a “game?” This sounds like a stoner question but instead occupied a fair amount of the morning in Epic v. Apple. Roblox, explained Apple’s marketing manager Trystan Kosmynka, was an app. See, games have a beginning, an end, and challenges. “There’s experiences within Roblox that we did not look at as a game,” Kosmynka said. We did establish that Minecraft is a game, though, so that’s nice for Microsoft.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not understand this distinction and neither did I. But here’s the problem for Apple: if Roblox is a game, then it’s fairly easy for Epic to compare Fortnite to it. Also, looking up Roblox in the App Store after Kosmynka testified, it is categorized as a “game.”
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digiKam 7.7.0 is released
After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release.
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Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
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Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future Tech
The metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world.
Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility.
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