Topic: January's Windows 7 hole still open (remotely switch UAC)

[Samker]

A security hole in Windows 7, highlighted by a blogger back in January, is still wide open and Microsoft is showing very little interest in closing it.

Of course the software is only in beta right now, but the full release is due in August.

An Aussie blogger spotted the problem with User Account Control back in January.

UAC is meant to guard against malware - it warns users when applications try to make changes to the computer. But 21-year old Long Zheng created proof of concept code which can remotely switch UAC off without informing the user.

He was told at the time by Microsoft that the bug was not a bug, but was instead there by design. It will therefore not be fixed.

Long Zheng has now posted a video on his popular blog istartedsomething.com to try and explain why he feels this is a serious security hole which needs fixing before the August launch.

He said he was releasing the code because Microsoft has known about this for over a year and: "If Microsoft is right in saying this has no security implications, then this should mean nothing. If they are not then, well, at least there is still time to do something about it. A month to be exact."

The blog post and video are here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090613/windows-7-uac-code-injection-vulnerability-video-demonstration-source-code-released/

(The Register)