IBM/VMware experts break through Vista memory Protection

Two computer system security researchers demonstrated a new technique to completely bypass Vista's memory protection mechanism at a Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas recently, it brings a new idea to network security threats.

Mark Dowd from IBM Internet Security System ISS and Alexander Sotirov from VMware, a virtual machine software company, demonstrated at the conference that they cracked Vista's random address allocation and ASLR) and performed data protection (DEP). They can use Java, Active X, and. Net objects to load malicious code to Web browsers, mainly for IE browsers.

Because this method can be used to access the victim system at will and load arbitrary code, it is extremely destructive, so its technical details are not completely disclosed. However, security experts who have studied their papers have said that this new attack method is a breakthrough and Microsoft is likely to be powerless. Because it does not take advantage of any new IE or Vista vulnerabilities, it starts to attack the infrastructure of Vista.

The famous security expert Dino Dai Zovi said: "The genius of this method is that it is completely reproducible. They can load any code wherever they want. Vista is complete. In the face of this new method, almost all browser vulnerabilities seem ordinary. A large number of security prevention methods have been ineffective, and ASLR and hardware DEP have no ability to defend against such attacks ."

Microsoft did not comment on the findings. However, Mike Reavey, manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, said they have noticed the study and will conduct an in-depth investigation once its methods are published. It is worth noting that Microsoft is not the only one to worry about. It is said that this method is not based on any specific system security vulnerabilities, and similar attacks against other platforms or environments may be quickly imitated.

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