Zero Day Initiative Blog
thezdi.com · Company blog · on HN since 2018
Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative publishes vulnerability write-ups and exploit analyses covering Exchange, the Linux kernel, browsers, and Pwn2Own contests.
What HN saysHN commenters cite it as a source for details on specific CVEs, such as the Exchange RCE and repeated eBPF verifier exploits.
25HN people shared it
7linked it in comments
31stories submitted
883story points
6 months agolast shared
2018people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1CVE-2020-0688: Remote Code Execution on Microsoft Exchange Server4 people · 92 points · first shared 2020 · 20 comments on HN
- 2CVE-2020-8835: Linux kernel privilege escalation via improper eBPF verification2 people · 5 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 3Analyzing BSD Kernels for Uninitialized Memory Disclosures Using Binary Ninja2 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 4Pwn2Own Vancouver 2019: Tesla, VMWare, Microsoft, and more1 people · 301 points · first shared 2019 · 169 comments on HN
- 5Exploiting a heap overflow in the FreeBSD wi-fi stack1 people · 137 points · first shared 2022 · 27 comments on HN
- 6But You Told Me You Were Safe: Attacking the Mozilla Firefox Renderer (Part 1)1 people · 114 points · first shared 2022 · 10 comments on HN
- 7Microsoft Windows Network File System v4 Remote Code Execution1 people · 104 points · first shared 2022 · 42 comments on HN
- 8RCE Without Native Code: Exploitation of a Write-What-Where in Internet Explorer1 people · 54 points · first shared 2019 · 9 comments on HN
- 9But You Told Me You Were Safe: Attacking the Mozilla Firefox Renderer (Part 2)1 people · 24 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 10CVE-2020-7460: FreeBSD Kernel Privilege Escalation1 people · 17 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 11CVE-2021-20226: A Bug in the Linux io_uring Subsystem1 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 12CVE-2020-7468: Turning Imprisonment to Advantage in the FreeBSD ftpd chroot Jail1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 13Exploiting a Flaw in Bitmap Handling in Windows User-Mode Printer Drivers1 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 14Exploiting Exchange PowerShell After ProxyNotShell: Part 31 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15PWN2OWN Vancouver 2022 – The Results1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
floatboth · 2018-07-12
Because UNIX security model ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Pretty much every modern programming environment involves running arbitrary third party code as "you", with access to all of ~/ and whatnot.
How would you solve that on a package manager level? Static analysis? It's really difficult to make an analyzer that wouldn't be trivially defeated by obfuscation, and wouldn't at the same time have false positives all the time.
Sandboxing at the language runtime (in this case node) level? Theoretically a nice idea, but difficult to implement securely. Java has been trying. Besides the fact that practically no one uses it to isolate third party libraries in server/desktop apps, there were some serious vulnerabilities: https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2018/4/25/when-java-throws-you-a-lemon-mak…
An OS level capability-based security model like Capsicum/CloudABI is a better solution, but again — doesn't fit that well with libraries. In Capsicum, you need a process boundary to isolate code, and that implies IPC, which is a thing developers absolutely love to use all the time… (not).
Here's an awesome research idea that I sadly do not have the time to work on: make a programming environment where all shared libraries are actually servers built as CloudABI executables, library calls are actually some super-fast RPC (with e.g. Cap'n Proto to avoid spending time on serialization, and of course fd passing for capabilities), and everything is handled as transparently…
peblos · 2021-03-09
This is true, although if I look at my old company - they've migrated to Exchange Online and run onprem Exchange servers to support the hybrid environment. But they don't need to publish those servers to the Internet.
Many of these orgs should have learned this after [CVE-2020-0688](https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2020/2/24/cve-2020-0688-remote-code-execut…
If it's a hybrid environment, it doesn't need to be exposed.
That doesn't solve MS problem of coming up with a better solution though
luch · 2020-12-13
> The binary TDDP protocol merits further research since it is available on a broad range of TP-Link devices.
The tdpServer binary regularly get abused to root TP-link devices for Pwn2Own Tokyo : https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2020/4/6/exploiting-the-tp-link-archer-c7-…
Also :
- https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/51672.html
- https://www.coresecurity.com/core-labs/advisories/tp-link-tddp-multipl…
- https://medium.com/@CoreSecurity/a-story-about-tp-link-device-debug-pr…
dvaun · 2020-08-19
IIRC there have been similar issues in the past with other hardware (what comes to mind are "smart" items such as locks, wifi cameras, etc.).
As for software, there was an issue earlier this year with Exchange Server failing to generate unique keys [0] (prev. discussion[1]).
[0]: https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2020/2/24/cve-2020-0688-remote-code-execut…
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22424260
wahern · 2020-06-11
eBPF has had many exploits, the most recent of which was just a few months ago: https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2020/4/8/cve-2020-8835-linux-kernel-privil…
Original BPF was safe by design (no verifier needed) but slow and far more restrictive, and even then there were exploits over the years. When eBPF and then eBPF JIT became a thing it was entirely predictable what would happen.
xedeon · 2020-01-22
Not if done correctly and you take security seriously. Most auto manufacturers outsource software development and engineering.
Tesla also offer pretty good bounties every year on PWN2OWN:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-car-hacked-at-pwn2own-contest/
https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2020/1/8/pwn2own-returns-to-vancouver-for-…
pcwalton · 2019-03-07
That seems to be this one: https://www.thezdi.com/blog/2019/2/28/finding-unicorns-when-the-c-comp…
It's a straightforward miscompilation. I'm not sure why they even classify it as a vulnerability.
From Microsoft, per the article: "The said vulnerability is about downloading and running untrusted code, which has always existed in all releases prior VS2017 Update 9 that supported lambdas. The scenario is not common coding practice and considering we've always had this in all our prior releases and have not seen any evidences of exploit it would not make sense to port the change as hotfix from 15.9 to prior VS releases."
In other words, it's never made into a product in an exploitable way. I'd just call this a miscompilation.