“Aurora” Exploit In Google Attack Now Public

Computer code that exploits the yet-to-be-patched Internet Explorer vulnerability used in Operation Aurora to attack Google and others in December has now been published on the Internet.

McAfee Labs researchers have seen references to the code on mailing lists and confirmed on Friday that the code was published on at least one Web site. The exploit code is the same code that McAfee Labs had been investigating and shared with Microsoft earlier this week, resulting in a security advisory from Microsoft that was published on Thursday.

The public release of the exploit code increases the possibility of widespread attacks using the Internet Explorer vulnerability. The now public computer code may help cybercriminals craft attacks that use the vulnerability to compromise Windows systems. Popular penetration testing tools are already being updated to include this exploit. This attack is especially deadly on older systems that are running XP and Internet Explorer 6.

As reported on Thursday by McAfee and confirmed by Microsoft, the security vulnerability affects Internet Explorer on all recent versions of Windows. An attacker could gain complete control over a vulnerable system by tricking a user to visit a rigged Web page. New versions of Windows make this exploitation harder, but not impossible.

McAfee Labs has been working around the clock, diving deep into the attack we are calling “Operation Aurora” that hit multiple companies and was publicly disclosed by Google on Tuesday. In our investigation of the attack we discovered that one of the malware samples involved in this broad attack exploits a new, previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Many people are taking the matter seriously. The German government, for example, has recommended that its citizens stop using Internet Explorer and use alternative browsers instead.

One of the areas I continue to get questions on is how to stop zero day attacks. One technology is white listing, such as products from our Solidcore family (application control) help to protect against 0-day attacks without signatures and without applying a patch. This is especially important in cases like this, where patches have yet to be released.

McAfee continues to work closely with Microsoft, the government and others to investigate the attacks.