Mac OS X worm maker raps Apple on security

Computerworld - The anonymous researcher who claims to have crafted a Mac OS X worm said today that he (or she) will report his findings to Apple Inc., but added that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company "has a very long way to go" on security.

Identified only as the researcher behind the Information Security Sell Out blog, the individual on Sunday announced that a still-unpatched bug in mDNSResponder, a component of Apple's Bonjour automatic network configuring service, could be exploited by a worm. Apple's May security update, dubbed 2007-005, included a fix for the mDNS bug.

"[My worm] is in the same code base, obviously, but that is where the similarity to the recently patched issues ends," said the researcher in an e-mail interview. "When Apple fixed the previous issues, they did not take care of the entire code base and there are a lot of bugs there... some are exploitable, like the one I am using, while others are not. But the fact remains that Apple did a horrible job in fixing this package."

According to the researcher, the worm is fully automated and ready to use. "It would be considered a fully weaponized exploit and fully automated," he said. "This is really no different than other worms we have seen [on the Windows platform]. Other than that, I am not able to give any more details."

Another researcher, however, questioned whether the anonymous individual crafted the worm in only a few hours, as claimed. "Writing the exploit in one day... unlikely for anything other than a stack overflow," said Dave Aitel, the chief technology officer at Immunity, Inc., a Miami Beach-based security company best known for its Canvas penetration testing software. "So most likely he found a stack overflow in mDNS, which is perfectly possible. It is open source, after all."

The researcher who claims to have created the worm didn't detail the vulnerability, but did emphasize that writing the exploit was a breeze. "The hard part is finding the bug," he said. "Once you have found it, it is very easy to exploit. The Bonjour (mDNS) service is UDP [User Datagram Protocol, one of the core Internet protocols] Universal as well, making it even more fun for things like worms."

But like other researchers who have grown tired of claims that Mac OS X is more secure than rival operating systems, the anonymous individual saved a last shot for Apple. Although he said he will report the newfound vulnerability to Apple at some point, he has no timetable at the moment. "I do believe in being responsible and working with vendors," he said, "but I also feel that some vendors need to be treated like children and learn lessons the hard way. Apple has a very long way to go when dealing with security issues in their products."