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[Full-disclosure] Re: [VulnWatch] Microsoft Windows NTFS Information Disclosure



Melvin Klassen wrote:

mattmurphy@xxxxxxxxx (Matthew Murphy) at Jun 30, 2005 12:01:59 PM wrote:



However, an apparent error in the NTFS driver's code causes the file system to incorrectly assign disk blocks to files before they have been initialized. Following a recovery from a system shutdown, uninitialized data may be visible in files from previously allocated disk blocks.



As far as I know, _every_ major Operating System has the same vulnerability.

I do _NOT_ know of any Operating System that "zero's" each newly-allocated
block/sector/track/cylinder of disk-space when allocating a "new" file,
whether on disk, or on magnetic tape, or on removable media.

IBM AIX? No.
IBM z/VM? No.
IBM z/OS? No.
IBM OS/2? No.
HP/UX? No.
Linux? No.
MS DOS? No.
MS Windows? No.


I wrote a more detailed reply to Melvin off-list. This response misses the point of the issue... which is not the fact that uninitialized data exists on disk (a known fact exploited by everything from "Delete undo" tools to forensic software), but that the NTFS accounting code treats said data as a valid portion of the file's content, thus making it readable to users without privileged access to the system.

VulnWatch Mod Note: Moved to VulnDiscuss, as I feel this to be the more sensible forum of discussion. You may want to move the original response there as well, to avoid confusion.

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