In computer security, WinNuke is an example of a Nuke remote denial-of-service attack (DoS) that affected the Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 3.1x computer operating systems and Windows 7.[ citation needed ] The exploit sent a string of out-of-band data (OOB data) to the target computer on TCP port 139 (NetBIOS), [1] causing it to lock up and display a Blue Screen of Death. This does not damage or change the data on the computer's hard disk, but any unsaved data would be lost.
The so-called OOB simply means that the malicious TCP packet contained an Urgent pointer (URG). The "Urgent pointer" is a rarely used field in the TCP header, used to indicate that some of the data in the TCP stream should be processed quickly by the recipient. Affected operating systems did not handle the Urgent pointer field correctly.
A person under the screen-name "_eci" published C source code for the exploit on May 9, 1997. [2] With the source code being widely used and distributed, Microsoft was forced to create security patches, which were released a few weeks later. For a time, numerous flavors of this exploit appeared going by such names as fedup, gimp, killme, killwin, knewkem, liquidnuke, mnuke, netnuke, muerte, nuke, nukeattack, nuker102, pnewq, project1, pstlince, simportnuke, sprite, sprite32, vconnect, vzmnuker, wingenocide, winnukeit, winnuker02, winnukev95, wnuke3269, wnuke4, and wnuke95.
A company called SemiSoft Solutions from New Zealand created a small program, called AntiNuke, that blocks WinNuke without having to install the official patch. [3]
Years later, a second incarnation of WinNuke that uses another, similar exploit was found. [4]
In programming and information security, a buffer overflow or buffer overrun is an anomaly whereby a program writes data to a buffer beyond the buffer's allocated memory, overwriting adjacent memory locations.
Samba is a free software re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol, and was originally developed by Andrew Tridgell. Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Microsoft Windows Server domain, either as a Domain Controller (DC) or as a domain member. As of version 4, it supports Active Directory and Microsoft Windows NT domains.
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and designed for businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officially released to retail on February 17, 2000 and September 26, 2000 for Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. It was Microsoft's business operating system until the introduction of Windows XP Professional in 2001.
This timeline of computer viruses and worms presents a chronological timeline of noteworthy computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, similar malware, related research and events.
A heap overflow, heap overrun, or heap smashing is a type of buffer overflow that occurs in the heap data area. Heap overflows are exploitable in a different manner to that of stack-based overflows. Memory on the heap is dynamically allocated at runtime and typically contains program data. Exploitation is performed by corrupting this data in specific ways to cause the application to overwrite internal structures such as linked list pointers. The canonical heap overflow technique overwrites dynamic memory allocation linkage and uses the resulting pointer exchange to overwrite a program function pointer.
Blaster was a computer worm that spread on computers running operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000 during August 2003.
A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually being called bugfixes or bug fixes. Patches are often written to improve the functionality, usability, or performance of a program. The majority of patches are provided by software vendors for operating system and application updates.
Sasser is a computer worm that affects computers running vulnerable versions of the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000. Sasser spreads by exploiting the system through a vulnerable port. Thus it is particularly virulent in that it can spread without user intervention, but it is also easily stopped by a properly configured firewall or by downloading system updates from Windows Update. The specific hole Sasser exploits is documented by Microsoft in its MS04-011 bulletin, for which a patch had been released seventeen days earlier. The most characteristic experience of the worm is the shutdown timer that appears due to the worm crashing LSASS.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft Corporation which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while the other computer must run RDP server software.
Windows NT 3.5 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was released on September 21, 1994, as the successor to Windows NT 3.1 and the predecessor to Windows NT 3.51.
Bolgimo is a Win32 computer worm, a self-replicating computer program similar to a computer virus, which propagates by attempting to exploit unpatched Windows computers vulnerable to the DCOM RPC Interface Buffer Overrun Vulnerability using TCP port 445 on a network. The worm was discovered on November 10, 2003, and targets Windows NT, 2000 and XP Operating Systems.
In computer security, arbitrary code execution (ACE) is an attacker's ability to run any commands or code of the attacker's choice on a target machine or in a target process. An arbitrary code execution vulnerability is a security flaw in software or hardware allowing arbitrary code execution. A program that is designed to exploit such a vulnerability is called an arbitrary code execution exploit. The ability to trigger arbitrary code execution over a network is often referred to as remote code execution (RCE).
Welchia, also known as the "Nachi worm", is a computer worm that exploits a vulnerability in the Microsoft remote procedure call (RPC) service similar to the Blaster worm. However, unlike Blaster, it first searches for and deletes Blaster if it exists, then tries to download and install security patches from Microsoft that would prevent further infection by Blaster, so it is classified as a helpful worm. Welchia was successful in deleting Blaster, but Microsoft claimed that it was not always successful in applying their security patch.
The Windows Metafile vulnerability—also called the Metafile Image Code Execution and abbreviated MICE—is a security vulnerability in the way some versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system handled images in the Windows Metafile format. It permits arbitrary code to be executed on affected computers without the permission of their users. It was discovered on December 27, 2005, and the first reports of affected computers were announced within 24 hours. Microsoft released a high-priority update to eliminate this vulnerability via Windows Update on January 5, 2006. Attacks using this vulnerability are known as WMF exploits.
Criticism of Windows XP deals with issues with security, performance and the presence of product activation errors that are specific to the Microsoft operating system Windows XP.
SAINT is computer software used for scanning computer networks for security vulnerabilities, and exploiting found vulnerabilities.
JASBUG is a security bug disclosed in February 2015 and affecting core components of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. The vulnerability dated back to 2000 and affected all supported editions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and Windows RT 8.1.
PLATINUM is the name given by Microsoft to a cybercrime collective active against governments and related organizations in South and Southeast Asia. They are secretive and not much is known about the members of the group. The group's skill means that its attacks sometimes go without detection for many years.
BlueKeep is a security vulnerability that was discovered in Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) implementation, which allows for the possibility of remote code execution.
PrintNightmare is a critical security vulnerability affecting the Microsoft Windows operating system. The vulnerability occurred within the print spooler service. There were two variants, one permitting remote code execution (CVE-2021-34527), and the other leading to privilege escalation (CVE-2021-1675). A third vulnerability (CVE-2021-34481) was announced July 15, 2021, and upgraded to remote code execution by Microsoft in August.