, SecurityFocus 2006-01-12
For four days in January, network administrators and security-savvy home users had a choice: Download and install an unofficial open-source fix for the critical flaw in the Windows Meta File (WMF) format or wait an estimated week for an official patch from Microsoft.
Expand all |
Post comment
What Microsoft needs to be doing...
2006-01-12
Eric (2 replies)
Eric (2 replies)
The Squander of MS Admins && Users
2006-01-13
Anonymous (1 replies)
Anonymous (1 replies)

So it looks like a backdoor already crafted in the source code, not something installed like a Trojan. This the kind of thing that kills the confidence ; Debian has been hit in a similar way but recovers the genuine source code in less than 24 hours. It's always possible to have a malicious contributor in an open source project. Hence, rewieving the code is a good practice, as it is said in a previous comment. And it's not a so flawed argument : one cannot argue that Wine's staff has not noticed something he cannot check.
Conclusion : a zero-day vuln can come from the inner and be exploited later. Just for this reason, it's important to rewieving the code since nobody has the same understanding of what is a feature and a security hole.
[ reply ]
Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/11368/32964#32964