Scare Tactics Is What I Think
There’s a new buzz about the media players that we use being a huge security risk and making it so that hackers can have your player execute commands when you play the sound file.
They’re claiming that somebody can attach malicious code and infect computers without the user’s knowledge. As a result, audio and video downloads can be turned into digital weapons that hackers could use to hijack or corrupt computers.
Thiel, who exposed the flaws on relatively obscure open-source media players during a presentation at the Black Hat hacker conference, said he has found several flaws in popular commercial players. But he declined to provide their brand names because, he said, he is still disclosing the exploits to the companies so they can issue fixes.
He is not aware of any current attacks using the vulnerabilities he has discovered but noted they’re hard to track.
“The actual potential for attack is reasonably severe because nobody cares about actually playing videos from YouTube or playing music on Web pages - you can’t get music to stop playing at you,” he said.
“Because this stuff is launched automatically, I think the impact could be significant.”
I bet YouTube isn’t going to like that comment.
I’ve been aware about possible attachments of malicious code to such files as MP3’s and WMA files, that’s old news. What I think this is, it’s just another thing the the big guns are doing to try and curb illegal downloading is what I think.
I think that because it’s old news that media players like Windows Media Player are always under attack because of it’s security holes all the time, so why start talking about it now. Maybe they want to use some facts to help with their BS Tactics again.
Whatever the reason, I always scan my files, and I only get my music from a reliable source, and before somebody says that even a reliable source can be infected, I know that already, but I still scan.
This is my opinion, and you’re entitled to it.
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Internet Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
