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from the parent: "You can probably buy real clientsides in IE or a popular plugin for far less than six figures." I'm pretty sure that what the parent means i
by lsc 16y ago
from the parent: "You can probably buy real clientsides in IE or a popular plugin for far less than six figures."
I'm pretty sure that what the parent means is that you could buy a plugin, or rather the company that writes a plugin. say, adblock (okay, adblock might be more than six figures... a less popular plugin that is still fairly widely used.) along with the rights and credentials to upload a new version. (of course, you'd pretend to be a legitimate business to do this.) Now, I don't know how IE works, but FireFox has a mechanism to automatically update plugins to their latest versions. You now insert your malicious code into the plugin and cause the auto-update to run. Assuming the infection isn't immediately obvious, you will, within a few days, infect nearly all users of that plugin.
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoI am pretty sure that tptacek does mean buying vulnerabilities. There are quite a few unsophisticated hackers offering exploits for sale ("serious buyers only") (e.g. on the Full-Disclosure mailing list), and the occasional debate about publishing/selling to "good guys" like Zero Day Initiative/selling to "bad guys" suggests that these sellers are, indeed, unsophisticated. (Which is not to say that your way wouldn't work too.) EDIT: Mention Full-Disclosure somewhere.
- lsc 16y agoyou might be right. But I know if I was to attempt to buy a botnet (note, I'm a SysAdmin, not a security expert, so I might be doing it wrong.) I'd probably try to do it as I described in my post. People put a lot of trust into popular browser add-ons, and there is very little oversight.