I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too
Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
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Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#32I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too
It's because the program just calls a Windows API to display the version dialog of Windows itself.
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> viewing data is a fundamental failure of the principle of least privilege. I read the cwe not cve, was wrong. It's still early in the morning...
> If I read it correctly (but could be mistaken), it runs with setuid root I am certain you are mistaken. I couldn't find anything that hints at notepad running with elevated privileges.
In fact, if you enabled developer mode on your computer there's a registry key that gets set to run notepad as admin, it's: `runas /savecred /user:PC-NAME\Administrator “notepad %1”` in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT-> * -> shell -> runas (new folder) -> (Default)
And, if I'm not totally mistaken, notepad also has the ability to reopen files as administrator, but I don't remember how to invoke it.
Regardless, notepad is a very trusted application and is often run as Administrator. Often it's more trusted than any other utility to modify system files.
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#34I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too
It needs far more features apparently. Tons more. That's why Notepad++ is popular. Which also had a severe security vulnerability recently. Which was actively exploited by some state actor like China.
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#35I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too
By using a version that is _that_ old you do lose out on some of the actually useful updates legacy nodepad received, such as LF line ending support.
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#36We have officially reached the logical conclusion of the feature-bloat-to-vulnerability pipeline. For nearly thirty years, notepad.exe was the gold standard for a "dumb" utility which was a simple, win32-backed buffer for strings that did exactly one thing...display text. An 8.8 CVSS on a utility meant for viewing data is a fundamental failure of the principle of least privilege. At some point, they need to stop aski…
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#37At this point, what am I supposed to do other than uninstall Windows completely? No real sandboxing, a mountain of legacy…
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#38I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too
Re: Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It needs far more features apparently. Tons more. That's why Notepad++ is popular. Which also had a severe security vulnerability recently. Which was actively exploited by some state actor like China.
That recent Notepad++ incident was a supply chain attack, not a vulnerability in the original program.
This has prompted me to move on from Notepad++ - it's sad, because I've used it for many years, but this is too much.