WebApp Sec mailing list archives

Re: [Full-disclosure] 4 Questions: Latest IE vulnerability,Firefox vs IE security, User vs Admin risk profile,and browsers coded in 100% Managed Verifiable code


From: "Brian Eaton" <eaton.lists () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:46:05 -0500

On 3/28/06, michaelslists () gmail com <michaelslists () gmail com> wrote:
no, a browser written in java would not have buffer overflow/stack
issues. the jvm is specifically designed to prevent it ...

-- Michael

On 3/29/06, Pavel Kankovsky <peak () argo troja mff cuni cz> wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Brian Eaton wrote:

If I run a pure-java browser, for example, no web site's HTML code is
going to cause a buffer overflow in the parser.

Even a "pure-java browser" would rest on the top of a huge pile of native
code (OS, JRE, native libraries). A seemingly innocent piece of data
passed to that native code might trigger a bug (perhaps even a buffer
overflow) in it...

Unlikely (read: less likely than a direct attack vector) but still
possible.

Pavel is talking about native code, which the JVM needs to interface
to the rest of the OS.  Native code can have buffer overflows, and
those bugs can be exploitable.

For example: http://www.appsecinc.com/resources/alerts/general/WEBSPHERE-001.html

The risk is several orders of magnitude less, but it is there.

Regards,
Brian

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