Re: FLASH: death sentence for Flash?

[Charlene Reese]

do you know any more about what the embed tag has to do with it?

-charlene


On  1/10/99, Markki Piho wrote:

>    >Hi all,   Maybe I panic without any reason but:  

>

>Update - Foiling the  Russian New Year Attack

>

>SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., Newsbytes - Mobile code security firm Finjan

>has released details onhow to foil the Russian New Year security hole

>which uses  standard World Wide Web page tags and legitimate Microsoft

>Corp. MS Office Excel  functions to take over a visiting PC.

>

>At a press conference Tuesday morning, Finjan president and chief

>executive officer,  (CEO) Bill Lyons, said the attack has been confirmed

>only for MS Office 95 and  97 on Windows platforms, but advised Mac users

>to consider the MS Office ports  to that platform as "suspicious" as well.

>He said Unix users are  immune to the exploit "since MS Office doesn't run

>on Unix."

>

>Lyons said he was aware of criticism levied at the high-profile handling

>of  the recently announced Remote Explorer virus by Network Assoc. and the

>firm had  brought in some big-gun security consultants to counter

>potential skepticism  about the Russian New Year, or RNY, security hole.

>

>One consultant was quoted as saying, "Once you learn how this works, if

>this vulnerability does not make you weak in the knees, then you do not

>understand the seriousness of this problem."

>

>As for why Microsoft did not participate in the news conference, Lyons

>remarked, "You should ask Microsoft that question. My personal assessment

>is that Microsoft has the browsers, it has Excel, and they had 95 percent

>of the  solution in December." He added that Microsoft's announcement

>regarding a  patch used to disable the Excel CALL function critical to the

>security hole was  not linked to Internet browsing and seemed like a

>problem for sophisticated  hackers.

>

>Finjan insists that any high school student capable of creating a home

>page  using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags can also use the RNY

>exploit.

>

>To foil the exploit, Finjan has made the following recommendations:

>

>First, install or upgrade to Microsoft's Office  97 and install Service

>Release 1 followed by Service  Release 2. Then install the Excel patch to

>eliminate  the 'CALL' function.

>

>Second, if using Microsoft's Internet  Explorer version 4.x, adjust the

>security setting on the browser to the  highest level.

>

>Third, if using Netscape Navigator, install or upgrade to Navigator  4.5.

>

>For licensed Finjan  SurfinGate users with Netscape Navigator set as their

>default browser, set  the SurfinGate policy to "Block All Plug-ins."  This

>will remove all <embed> tags from the HTML code.

>

>For licensed customers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer or those

>Netscape  Navigator users who do not want entire blocking of all plug-ins,

>download an  updated version of SurfinGate at http://www.finjan.com/rny .

>This version  includes a patch file with enhanced HTML scanning features

>that allow users to  list a variety of file types that can be blocked.

>

>Those who are not a licensed SurfinGate customer may download a fully

>functional 30-day evaluation copy of SurfinGate from the Finjan Software

>Products Web page at http://www.finjan.com/ryn . For desktop PCs

>connected to the Internet, Finjan urges users to consider purchasing

>licensed  copies of SurfinGate for protection beyond the 30-day time

>period.

>

><http://www.newsbytes.com/> NewsBytes



--------------------------

Charlene Reese - S r T e U e D s I e O

Digital Graphic Design for Print, Multimedia and the Web

creesestudio [dot] net

   http://www.reesestudio.net

949.766.7822




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