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March 2, 2006 4:30 PM PST
Google fixes 'minor' Gmail flaw
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The flaw could allow JavaScript code to run when viewing a message in Gmail, potentially allowing malicious code to be used by an attacker to compromise a Gmail account, according to a blogger who calls himself "Anthony."
The blogger, who claims to be a 14-year-old student, found the flaw when sending code from his Yahoo Web mail account to his Gmail account, he wrote on Wednesday. The Web log is hosted by Google's Blogger service.
Google fixed the flaw "very shortly after the initial blog post went up," a representative for the Mountain View, Calif., company said. "We learned of a minor security flaw in Gmail a little while ago and worked quickly to fix the problem, which has now been resolved," the representative said.
Because the vulnerability was fixed quickly, it likely never was exploited in any attacks, the representative said. Still, Google would have preferred to have been alerted to the flaw privately, instead of via a public blog.
"We encourage all vulnerability reporters to follow responsible disclosure practices and notify vendors first before making the vulnerability public," the representative said.
Flaws in online services are found regularly. Last December, Google fixed a security hole in the mechanism it uses to generate error pages for forbidden redirects and pages that don't exist on the Google Web site. The flaw opened the door to phishing scams, account hijacks and other attacks.
Similar flaws have been discovered and fixed in other parts of Google's Web site, as well as in Microsoft's Xbox 360 Web site and Yahoo's Web-based e-mail service.
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The flaw was able to harvest millions of e-mail addresses.
The flaw was able to hi-jack entire groups
Compromise owner and moderator e-mail accounts
Leave a mailicious owner and moderator account in thousands of groups
Was disclosed to the major mailing lists in December 2005 as "Google is vulnerable from XSS attack"
50 to 80 days later, still was no fix.
Put the flaw on Digg.com as "Unpatched: Google attack vector" and the flaw was finally fixed, weeks after that.
Major delay for a flaw which is able to cause global consequence to spam and phishing in months and years to come.
Maybe the entire list of e-mail addresses should be put up on eBay?
Your corporate and consumer e-mail spam and phishing coming at you due to a javascript flaw thats "minor".
I wonder how much money will be made from the sale? eBay will be forced to pull the sale, but at least the timely sale will get media attention.
Regards,
n3td3v
The harvest is still continuing to this day because of the malicious owner and moderator accounts left on thousands of existing groups, which pick-up new members as they join a group.
Google Groups owned? You decide.