Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The script triggered a file dialog showing it was trying to access a local file. I opened the Developer Tools and saw all kinds of other files being accessed, including my private and public keys. I nearly got a heart attack. I quickly revoked all SSH keys and started monitoring the requests to narrow it down before I submitted the bug ticket with all the information I had, including the exploit script that was executed.



Update: I played around with the exploit some more to find out what exactly triggered the file dialog. Turns out my OS (Ubuntu 15.04) actually saved me.

When you try to open a file with Firefox it will first try to map the file to a mimetype using the ExternalHelperAppService (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/How_Mozilla_determi...). In case a mimetype is found, a file dialog is shown so you can open the file with the right application, in case it is not, the contents of the file will be displayed in the browser. In this case my OS provided the ExternalHelperAppService with a mimetype for one of my public keys with the .pub file extension: application/vnd.ms-publisher. Of course that's not the correct mimetype for the public key file, but that's basically what saved me by showing a file dialog because it found a mimetype. All other files had no file extension so no mimetype was found.

I also discovered that my private keys were all encrypted with a passphrase so even though they have been compromised it was not as bad as I initially believed.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: