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Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

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Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#161

Positively terrible... Kudos to this researcher. I liked Zoom when I used it a couple of times, but the reinstall “feature” is a huge violation of my trust. Software from the company behind it will not touch my system anymore. Too bad really, because properly working video chat is hard to find. The App Store model is not my favorite, but at times like these, a forced sandbox and inspection by a trusted third party st…

What reinstall feature?

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#162

> This vulnerability leverages the amazingly simple Zoom feature where you can just send anyone a meeting link (for example https://zoom.us/j/492468757 ) and when they open that link in their browser their Zoom client is magically opened on their local machine. I was curious about how this amazing bit of functionality was implemented and how it had been implemented securely. Come to find out, it really hadn’t been im…

I have some experience with this, you can use javascript on the https:// meeting link to detect if the app protocol (zoom:// or whatever) exists. If the app protocol exists then go straight to the app protocol link. If it doesn’t then prompt the user to download and install Zoom. The JS is a bit messy and requires a few different approaches but it works on all popular browsers on Windows and Mac (Linux support wasn’t needed, so not sure).

Of course, the browser will pop up a confirmation dialog to ask if you want to open the Zoom app but this is a feature not a bug.

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#163
post #5

Note: "Zoom" is a videoconfrerencing app, not a built-in Mac OS accessibility feature for "zoom". The article does not clearly state this, ceding a plain English word to a corporation, enabling a takeover of human language. P.S.: This part > Apr 26, 2019 — Video call with Mozilla and Zoom Security Teams is funny, and would be way funnier if it was an non-consensual video call. Finally, note that Zoom effectively does…

It's pretty well known in white hat circles that Zoom has a paid private bounty program through one of the "big 2". I know several who have got paid. Say what you like about non-disclosure, but it is the reality for most programs. We can disclose for pay, or disclose for fame, but usually not both.

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#165
post #164

If you do this audio-only there isn’t a telltale LED on the camera to give away that you are doing it. I’m way more worried about audio bugging than a webcam (which really only has the user’s face)

That's a hard problem to solve. An audio alert that the microphone has turned on would obviously be rejected by consumers, unless maybe some fancy processing were used to remove that alert sound from the recording. But even so, an audio alert would presumably only play once while the indicator light remains illuminated the entire time.

On the other hand while an indicator light is good for the camera, it's not sufficient for audio. If the computer is facing away from me, then the camera can't see me so my inability to see the camera light isn't that huge of a deal. But audio goes around corners so I could be recorded by a computer not immediately in eyesight.

If there were some reasonable third sensory channel to available for "out of band" communication, that would be ideal. But consumers will reject smell-alerts.

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#166
No amount of security features can rival a small piece of black tape over the camera.

It also makes crypto-phishing (you've been recorded doing X, pay Y BTC) much harder to fall for. Where software could (and eventually will) be compromised, the attacker would have to physically access the machine to remove that tape.

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#167
post #147
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > To shut down the web server, run lsof -i :19421 to get the PID of the process, then do kill -9 [process number]. Then you can delete the ~/.zoomus directory to remove the web server application files. > To prevent this server from being restored after updates you can execute the following in your terminal: rm -rf ~/.zoomus touch ~/.zoomus

Not sure why he didn't just give us kill -9 $(lsof -i :19421)

For the non bash users among us?

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#168
> Apr 10, 2019 — Vulnerability disclosed to Chromium security team.

> Apr 19, 2019 — Vulnerability disclosed to Mozilla FireFox security team.

Does anyone have any idea why there was a 9 day delay between disclosure to Chromium and Firefox teams?

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#169
post #164

If you do this audio-only there isn’t a telltale LED on the camera to give away that you are doing it. I’m way more worried about audio bugging than a webcam (which really only has the user’s face)

id much rather the zoom conference can't do anything unless I let it

Re: Vulnerability in the Mac Zoom client allows malicious websites to enable camera

#170

Ok here's the thing. Open Google Hangouts, or any other website that asks for permission to use your webcam, then close the tab. Go to terminal check if VDCAssistant is running using `lsof | grep -i VDC` it returns that it is running. I've had this issue since 2015 so I'm glad someone is talking about this now.. Is it just me?

That seems like an OS daemon specific to the built in webcam.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/fix-no-connected-camera-error-on...

> When you run a program that uses your Mac's webcam, OS X will launch a background process called VDCAssistant, which manages the connection and control of the camera. While this process should quit when the program stops using the camera, it may persist if an error occurs, and prevent future connections to the camera, either by the same program or by others.

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