#1 reason to not use Outlook
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Todd C. Wilson wrote: Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. So is this an new exploit or did they just forgot to install a patch? You'd think Valve would know about patches... there were enough of them for half-life ;-) I don't know much about the RemoteAnywhere exploit but surely a well configured firewall would prevent it. It seems to me that Valve got done because of lax security and are just trying to deflect the blame - much like we all do when we get stung. Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
Old exploit, old problem. It is VERY much like smoking and then saying you didn't know it was a health risk, and expecting everyone to believe you. Of course they had lax security - they used Outlook, didn't they? Makes me oh-so-trusting of their games now. You can be sure that Gabe is going to be be fired shortly - maybe when that happens people will realize that having Outlook on their work systems is a risk liablity. Having a firewall in place generally doesn't mean squat, since it's usually only cofigured for incoming blocks - people like to be able to get out and use whatever (chat clients, etc). RA just connects out to an existing server. This was a VERY clever, directed attack with a singular goal in mind. Security experts have been saying for years something like this was going to happen, so you can expect to see more of it, but less public results - are you sure that your own code/products/data/sales reports haven't already been copied? Remember, the anti-virus tools didn't catch it because they didn't know about it - AV scanners are worthless if they don't have the signature for the item (So.Big.v9434b1 etc)
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com Visual Face Lift: Skinning for apps Listen! Audio Server: Be the music "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"
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"At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools)." -- Gabe Newell, talking about the Half-Life 2 source code leak. I hope this serves as a wake-up call to everyone STILL insisting on using a product that is so overwhelmingly prone to mis-use. Using Outlook is like smoking, you're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting the people you care for the most.
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com Visual Face Lift: Skinning for apps Listen! Audio Server: Be the music "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"
In sincerely feel horrible for the Valve group. Imagine, 4 years of your life devoted to a single project consisting of thousands upon thousands of lines of code, and within a couple months of the release date, and then boom, all the code stolen from beneath you. HL2 was going to be the only thing to remotely compete with D3 for game of the year in 2004. This puts a huge damper on things.... Jim QTExtender - The OFFICIAL addon for QuoteTracker.
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"At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools)." -- Gabe Newell, talking about the Half-Life 2 source code leak. I hope this serves as a wake-up call to everyone STILL insisting on using a product that is so overwhelmingly prone to mis-use. Using Outlook is like smoking, you're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting the people you care for the most.
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com Visual Face Lift: Skinning for apps Listen! Audio Server: Be the music "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"
Someone is trying to deflect blame for not having sufficient security at the company. They are obviously just making stuff up ("Our speculation", gee, why not speculate that an army of monkeys stole the source.) This whole thing screams to be an inside job or simple carelessness. Joe Woodbury When all else fails, there's always delusion. - Conan O'Brien
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In sincerely feel horrible for the Valve group. Imagine, 4 years of your life devoted to a single project consisting of thousands upon thousands of lines of code, and within a couple months of the release date, and then boom, all the code stolen from beneath you. HL2 was going to be the only thing to remotely compete with D3 for game of the year in 2004. This puts a huge damper on things.... Jim QTExtender - The OFFICIAL addon for QuoteTracker.
AAntix wrote: HL2 was going to be the only thing to remotely compete with D3 for game of the year in 2004. This puts a huge damper on things.... <xbox fanboy> Other than Halo 2, which is going to be the game of 2004 ;p </xbox fanboy> And there's bound to be a followup to Vice City. I don't think D3 is actually going to be as impressive a game as people are making out. HL2 I expect to be a good game. D3 I expect to be a good graphics demo. -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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Someone is trying to deflect blame for not having sufficient security at the company. They are obviously just making stuff up ("Our speculation", gee, why not speculate that an army of monkeys stole the source.) This whole thing screams to be an inside job or simple carelessness. Joe Woodbury When all else fails, there's always delusion. - Conan O'Brien
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We are forced to use Notes too! We also keep a utility on hand to kill Notes since it freezes and crashes so often. :mad: I also try to keep Notes backed up. I use Outlook at home. Love it! ed Regulation is the substitution of error for chance.
Notes blows. I use it at work, and would love to switch to Outlook.
"The beat goes on.. da-da-dum dadum dum"
BW
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AAntix wrote: HL2 was going to be the only thing to remotely compete with D3 for game of the year in 2004. This puts a huge damper on things.... <xbox fanboy> Other than Halo 2, which is going to be the game of 2004 ;p </xbox fanboy> And there's bound to be a followup to Vice City. I don't think D3 is actually going to be as impressive a game as people are making out. HL2 I expect to be a good game. D3 I expect to be a good graphics demo. -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
Ian Darling wrote: Halo 2 :zzz: I'll wait until it comes out on the PC It only took FOREVER for Halo to be released on PC. :mad: The kindest thing you can do for a stupid person, and for the gene pool, is to let him expire of his own dumb choices. [Roger Wright on stupid people] We're like private member functions [John Theal on R&D]
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Yes and no. For those who work for companies, I was wondering what they use as alternatives to Outlook. We use Outlook at my current workplace, for example. Does anyone else use an email client other than Outlook?? John Theal Physicist/Mathematical Programmer Digital Immersion Software Corporation Got CAD? http://www.presenter3d.com[^]
Lotus Notes. X| X| X| Trust me, it's worse than you would ever believe. Anna :rose: Homepage | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work. Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Visual C++ Add-In
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"At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools)." -- Gabe Newell, talking about the Half-Life 2 source code leak. I hope this serves as a wake-up call to everyone STILL insisting on using a product that is so overwhelmingly prone to mis-use. Using Outlook is like smoking, you're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting the people you care for the most.
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com Visual Face Lift: Skinning for apps Listen! Audio Server: Be the music "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"
Just a thought...were their machines not firewalled? I've long being an advocate of firewalling machines within corporate networks - and last month had to say "we told you so" to our IT department when they tried to contain a trojan. Although you can argue that the thing shouldn't have made it onto the network in the first place, to me it's just common sense to play safe. Anna :rose: Homepage | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work. Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Visual C++ Add-In
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Just a thought...were their machines not firewalled? I've long being an advocate of firewalling machines within corporate networks - and last month had to say "we told you so" to our IT department when they tried to contain a trojan. Although you can argue that the thing shouldn't have made it onto the network in the first place, to me it's just common sense to play safe. Anna :rose: Homepage | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work. Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Visual C++ Add-In
I seriously doubt it would have mattered - once the thing was "inside", it can connect out in any one of a dozen ways and be controlled. So unless the firewall was set up in advance to do stateful inspection of the packets and know that a modified version of RemoteAssistance was being used, then there is no way. The Anti-virus didn't pick it up because Symantec et all hadn't seen it yet. The real problem is that he got a specificly designed trojan for this exact job automatically installed on his machine with little interaction or no from him - all he did was read his email! Preview and hey presto! So long and thanks for all the source code!
Todd C. Wilson (meme@nopcode.com) NOPcode.com Visual Face Lift: Skinning for apps Listen! Audio Server: Be the music "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the Way." - Chuang-Tzu "Zen in the Martial Arts"