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Did the link take you to a site that auto-ran malware? Or did it take you to some kind of page that said "login to unsubscribe"? The latter is why password ma

Did the link take you to a site that auto-ran malware? Or did it take you to some kind of page that said "login to unsubscribe"? The latter is why password managers can be so valuable. I never type my passwords in so if my auto-fill doesn't activate I immediately become suspicious. If it's the former, it seems like your company must be using an insecure browser or the site was running some kind of 0-day? I never think twice about clicking links.

deleted 7y ago
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inetknght 7y ago
> I never think twice about clicking links. I hope you don't work for any sensitive position.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  That's not very fair. Browser exploits are a lot rarer than phishing.
  - acdha 7y ago
    I don't think background noise of broad, low-effort phishing emails can be directly compared to a more focused attack. If you work somewhere with interesting data the odds of a good phishing attack leading to an exploit could be much higher because you're being specifically targeted and they're not going to send the message until they have a current exploit ready (probably hoping to get it in before your IT department's change window, too).
    - michaelt 7y ago
      If someone had a working browser exploit, wouldn't they just deliver it to their targets via an ad network? AFAIK most enterprises don't mandate ad blocking or noscript.
      - acdha 7y ago
        > If someone had a working browser exploit, wouldn't they just deliver it to their targets via an ad network? I've heard more people at enterprises using ad blockers for security so I wouldn't rule that out but in general this is hitting that the broad vs. targeted distinction I mentioned: each time you use an exploit you're risking discovery, which will lead to it being patched & AV signatures going out. Using an ad network increases the number of people who are not your target getting the payload, not to mention any scanning the network does, and since ad networks require payment there's another trail pointing back to you which might not otherwise be the case if you are hosting things on compromised servers.
- mason55 7y ago
  It's a valid comment, but if you're in a position where you are worried about 0-days from random web browsing then you should be using the internet on a fully segregated machine. If Firefox or Chrome has an RCE + privilege escalation in it that can be triggered just from browsing to a page then, congrats, you got me.
  - web007 7y ago
    The recent CPU-level vulnerabilities have exploits that can run in the browser. See https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpus-impacted-by-new-zombieload-side-channel-attack/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpus-impacted-by-new-zom... for pointers to video evidence. They're not zero-day attacks once they're made public, just the same as Meltdown and Spectre. Go download the PoC code, switch calc.exe to something useful, and phish away. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20028108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20028108 from earlier this week shows that just loading a page can lead to network information disclosure or other compromise / attack vectors. It's not a zero-day, it's a feature.
0xffff2 7y ago
When my organization does these, the link just goes to a static page that says "you could have been phished". The fact that in fact no serious attempt at phishing has yet taken place and that my work machine is far too insecure if they're worried about browser 0-days seems totally lost on them.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

inetknght 7y ago

> I never think twice about clicking links. I hope you don't work for any sensitive position.

Dylan16807 7y ago
That's not very fair. Browser exploits are a lot rarer than phishing.
- acdha 7y ago
  I don't think background noise of broad, low-effort phishing emails can be directly compared to a more focused attack. If you work somewhere with interesting data the odds of a good phishing attack leading to an exploit could be much higher because you're being specifically targeted and they're not going to send the message until they have a current exploit ready (probably hoping to get it in before your IT department's change window, too).
  - michaelt 7y ago
    If someone had a working browser exploit, wouldn't they just deliver it to their targets via an ad network? AFAIK most enterprises don't mandate ad blocking or noscript.
    - acdha 7y ago
      > If someone had a working browser exploit, wouldn't they just deliver it to their targets via an ad network? I've heard more people at enterprises using ad blockers for security so I wouldn't rule that out but in general this is hitting that the broad vs. targeted distinction I mentioned: each time you use an exploit you're risking discovery, which will lead to it being patched & AV signatures going out. Using an ad network increases the number of people who are not your target getting the payload, not to mention any scanning the network does, and since ad networks require payment there's another trail pointing back to you which might not otherwise be the case if you are hosting things on compromised servers.
mason55 7y ago
It's a valid comment, but if you're in a position where you are worried about 0-days from random web browsing then you should be using the internet on a fully segregated machine. If Firefox or Chrome has an RCE + privilege escalation in it that can be triggered just from browsing to a page then, congrats, you got me.
- web007 7y ago
  The recent CPU-level vulnerabilities have exploits that can run in the browser. See https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpus-impacted-by-new-zombieload-side-channel-attack/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-cpus-impacted-by-new-zom... for pointers to video evidence. They're not zero-day attacks once they're made public, just the same as Meltdown and Spectre. Go download the PoC code, switch calc.exe to something useful, and phish away. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20028108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20028108 from earlier this week shows that just loading a page can lead to network information disclosure or other compromise / attack vectors. It's not a zero-day, it's a feature.

0xffff2 7y ago

When my organization does these, the link just goes to a static page that says "you could have been phished". The fact that in fact no serious attempt at phishing has yet taken place and that my work machine is far too insecure if they're worried about browser 0-days seems totally lost on them.