Cybercrims focus on Macs and zero-day

More than ever, software from Apple is being targeted, says security firm

The SANS Institute has warned of a steep increase in critical security holes in Apple’s Mac OS X operating system and in previously undiscovered (“zero day”) vulnerabilities in web browsers.

A booming cyber crime market is driving the growth in zero-day attacks, which are used against web browsers, as well as enterprise applications from Oracle, Symantec and others, to access sensitive data, SANS says.

After warning in November that hackers were turning their attention to security holes in applications, SANS has again found that application attacks are on the rise, says Rohit Dhamankar, project manager for the SANS Top 20 and a lead security architect at TippingPoint, a division of 3Com.

In the last six months, malicious hackers have shifted from looking for holes in Windows Services, like the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) hole that gave birth to the Sasser worm. That decline was offset by an increase in holes in client-side software, such as web browsers, email clients, productivity tools and media players, he says.

“We haven’t had vulnerabilities that lead to worms like Zotob or Sasser, but we have seen a large number of vulnerabilities in IE and other programs,” Dhamankar says.

More than ever, software from Apple is being targeted, Dhamankar says. “It’s part of the shift to application (attacks). You’ve got zero-day (vulnerabilities) reported in Mac OSX and (Apple’s) Safari browser. People can browse websites with a Mac and get infected,” he says.

Mac OS X machines are still far safer from internet-based attacks than Microsoft Windows, but it’s not bullet-proof, contrary to the belief of some of Apple’s staunch supporters, Dhamankar says.

Often, flaws in file-format handling open the door to application hacks, as with the recent Windows Metafile (WMF) and Windows Address Book holes, Dhamankar says.

Media file formats for Apple QuickTime, Windows Media Player, and products from RealNetworks and Macromedia are also popular with online criminals and malicious hackers, SANS says.

The volume of new holes is daunting. More than 100 such vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting and SQL injection flaws, might be discovered in a single week. The time between their discovery and their use in attacks is also diminishing, he says.

Enterprise applications, like networked backup services and Oracle databases, continue to be hot targets, Dhamankar says.

“People are going for the data,” Dhamankar says.

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Tags AppleapplicationsMacSANS Institutevulnerabilityzero-day attacks

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