I guess what I meant was, the vulnerability exists on the proxy.  Poisioning 
the cache requires deliberate (or freakishly inadvertent accidental) steps 
taken to compromise the proxy.  Yes, other clients then using that proxy are I 
guess potentially compromised but there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do 
about that, is there?

 

Browsers have a responsibility to prevent themselves from being used in an 
attack, because a browser does something that other connected sockets 
applications don’t do... i.e. download and execute code from arbitrary sources 
– web sites.  Opera and Firefox et al have to close the hole because if they 
didn’t, miscreants could contrive a means to have users visit a site that 
downloads exploit code to be run in the browser.

 

 

You can clean up your Delphi code (assuming it even needs it) all you like, but 
if somebody else comes along and compromises a proxy that your application is 
routing traffic through (whether by choice or dint of circumstance), then you 
are still screwed.  afaict.

 

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Monday, 13 December 2010 11:49
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Web Sockets security hole

 

As I understand, a Web Socket connecting via a proxy can be fooled in the case 
of many proxies to connect to a different site altogether due to a weakness in 
the UPGRADE protocol which can be exploited by poisoning the DNS cache.   The 
CONNECT protocol (not yet implemented) seems to be OK, and wss (Secure sockets 
may be ok).   It looks like a hole in security for the way many or most proxies 
are implemented that affects Web Sockets going via them.

 

I am still unsure how major this is and the implications, but as far as Opera 
and Firefox V4 are concerned they have turned off this protocol in HTML5 until 
it can be made secure.

 

It looks like a relative of the DNS poisoning cache security hole that had 
major releases of patches by a wide range of suppliers done urgently about a 
year ago to fix a basic DNS flaw also involving poisoning the DNS cache to 
point browsers and HTTP traffic to the wrong IP address.

 

My main questions were: is there much Delphi stuff out there using Web Sockets? 
and might this vulnerability with proxies something such people might need to 
take a look at (even if the proxy were not a Delphi product)?

 

(I use diddly squat Indy stuff myself so all of this is at a distance from me – 
just wanted to pass it on)

 

John

From: Jolyon Smith <mailto:[email protected]>  

Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 11:20 AM

To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' <mailto:[email protected]>  

Subject: Re: [DUG] Web Sockets security hole

 

I may be wrong but a quick read of the top link suggests to me that the issues 
lies specifically in the implementation of various proxies.

 

If that’s the case, any implications for Delphi would be for people 
implementing proxies using Indy, but NOT for clients or servers themselves.

 

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Monday, 13 December 2010 11:08
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: [DUG] Web Sockets security hole

 

Here is a reference I picked up on the Firefox list about a a security hole in 
Web Sockets –  and affects Java, Flash and HTML5.  Research done by Adam Barth 
of Google.

 

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/hybi/current/msg04744.html

http://www.adambarth.com/experimental/websocket.pdf

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=616733

 

As I am not an Indy etc expert I was wondering if anyone wanted to comment if 
there is any implication for Delphi?

 

John

 

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