Program data creator owner5/2/2023 ![]() ![]() In June of 2015, I looked at Advantech WebAccess 8.0. But if you do so, you need to set access control correctly – and it is very easy to do it wrong. ![]() Let me be clear – it is not inherently insecure to install software outside of the Windows Program Files trees. Most of them do not, but it is very easy to generate insecure access rights. Some of these reasons actually require insecure implementation. Product design that allows upgrade of packages without Administrator credentials, which is certainly problematic. Implementing the design by allowing all users to modify the software as well as the global data is far worse.ħ. This is a poor security design in the first place. Product design that comingles software and global data, meaning data that can be changed by any user. It could also possibly result from a port of the product from Linux to Windows.Ħ. Compatibility of software paths between Windows and Linux versions of the software. Terrifying, to be sure, but not unexpected.ĥ. The software is unable to handle paths with embedded spaces. The corporation has made minimal changes to the software since the days of Windows 95.ģ. The corporation really wants its name in a directory at the root of the drive.Ģ. There are a number of reasons the pattern of not using the Program Files tree might occur:ġ. If the system had multiple users, each will have their own Python installation. Those executables are controlled by the specific user who installed the package and will be executed by that user and can be updated by that user. In contrast to Python 2.7, installation of Python 3.5 puts executables inside an individual user AppData directory. A benefit of this, on a single-user machine, is that the user can update Python without having to elevate to Administrator. But development machines tend to be single-user. In a multi-user system, this can be a serious issue. This means that any user of the system can modify all of the Python 2.7 binaries. This is from a standard Windows 7 installation: Let’s take a look at how permissions should be set. This article can help you understand the output of the icacls command not look like a mysterious language. In a 64-bit system, there is also a “Program Files(x86)” root directory, which has the same access controls and serves the same purpose.Ī great article describing the format of icacls output can be found on Microsoft’s TechNet. Access control in “Program Files” is locked down so that only Administrators can do anything beyond reading and executing files within that tree. Microsoft’s goal in creating this directory was to provide a consistent location for software installation and, very importantly, consistent and secure access control for program executables. The bug – Weak Access Controls for Executable FilesĮxecutable files for programs installed on Windows systems are supposed to be installed in directories under the root directory “Program Files”. We’ll start by looking at bugs in the Advantech WebAccess product that – despite multiple patches – continue to exist. As such, this in my first blog post of a series showing simple vulnerabilities that should be rooted out. While subtle vulnerabilities and sophisticated exploits are quite exciting for security researchers, I think there is also value in looking for simple vulnerabilities that should no longer exist in shipping software. My colleagues in the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) have recently written many blog posts detailing complex vulnerabilities in many products.
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