January 3, 2002 at 11:41 am
The vulnerability has hit the major computer news outlet. The discoverer of the exploit, under the auspices of "full disclosure" also released an example of how to use the exploit. As a result, if you're a normal user of AIM, it's best to stay off until AOL Time Warner can "patch" the issue at their servers.
Even if you take the course of action listed in most of the advisories, it's only partial protection... what that does it keep people not on th buddy list from sending to you. However, it a person on your buddy list gets hit, they can turn around and hit you.
For the original advisory:
http://www.w00w00.org/advisories/aim.html
K. Brian Kelley
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
January 3, 2002 at 11:50 am
I didn't realize that once one machine is hit it can go through that buddy list to another. I planned on limiting my AIM to my buddies only and then our Senior Network Engineer used the firewall to block AIM until the patch is available. Then he sent a second message to the tech dept telling us not to configure AIM through another port.
Robert Marda
Robert W. Marda
Billing and OSS Specialist - SQL Programmer
MCL Systems
January 3, 2002 at 12:02 pm
The way the vulnerability works, it's like the ILOVEYOU virus... the ILOVEYOU virus mailed itself to everyone in your Personal Address book and Global Address list (if you were connected to an Exchange server).
Actually, it went down the list of all "address books" and emailed to every address it found. The vulnerability for AIM is much the same way. It can be exploited to use the Buddy List just as ILOVEYOU used the address book.
K. Brian Kelley
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
January 3, 2002 at 1:05 pm
January 3, 2002 at 7:10 pm
AOL has reported that it has fixed the vulnerability:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/680950.asp?0dm=C17KT
K. Brian Kelley
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bkelley/
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
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