Hi there.
Sorry for the book in advance. I am not half as intelligent as some of you,
and this list is extremely informative, but I don't "speak up" much. I have
an issue, and maybe you guys can shed some light on it, and the risks it can
pose.
I do surveys at a site "www.pineconeresearch.com". They are usually
opinions on new products. It's fairly interesting to see what garbage the
conglomerates are thinking up to separate us from our money, plus, I get a
whole $5 for each survey. Oh yay. I have been doing this some time now,
over 2 years.
This issue affects IE only, they do not allow the use of Firefox for surveys
there any more, which is BS to me in the first place.
The have implemented a "security feature" that attempts to access my
clipboard. I of course don't want to allow this, so I emailed the person
"in charge" explaining the problem with accessing the survey. Her
recommendation was to "enable clipboard access by websites". See her email
below. When calling the contact number, you instantly get shunted to the
"high call volume" menu and get to leave a message. NO ONE ANSWERS, EVER.
What should I do from here? It's an extremely popular site, and the person
in charge is telling folks to allow websites access to the clipboard.
Thanks for your help on this if any.
-----Original Message-----
From: <-snip->
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:18 PM
To: <-snip->
Subject: PineCone Research
Dear Panelist,
I apologize for the difficulty. This is a security feature built into
newer versions of IE. Some panelists reporting this issue have resolved it
by adjusting their security settings using one of the following methods:
With Internet Explorer open, go to Tools, Internet Options and select the
Security tab. Under "Select a zone to view or change security settings."
click Internet. Select Custom Level. Scroll down almost to the bottom
to find something labeled Scripting. Under that there is "Allow
Programmatic clipboard access" where you can choose Enable.
OR, depending on your version of IE:
With Internet Explorer open, go to Tools, Internet Options and select the
Security tab. Under "Select a zone to view or change security settings."
click Internet. Select Custom Level. Scroll down almost to the bottom
to find something labeled Scripting. Under that there is "Allow Paste
Operations via script," where you can choose Enable.
Thank you for your patience!
Thank you again,
---my responses---
Karen,
One of the things that my business does it security checks. This is a very
easy way to grab a user's password, they copy it to the clipboard, then hit
a page that grabs that from the clipboard without their knowledge.
I cannot allow web pages access to my clipboard. The "fix" you are
describing is an EXTREMELY insecure thing to do, allowing any webpage the
ability to read/write to the clipboard, opening a remote code execution
vulnerability, buffer over/under runs, and if there is sensitive information
on the clipboard, it can be read.
This security featured is flawed, and needs to be changed. I enjoy filling
out the surveys, seeing possible new products, but I cannot allow that
security breach, sorry. Hopefully your IT people will change this?
Surely you realize that allowing virus code or other to be written to the
clipboard is dangerous? If you have copied your home phone, credit card
number, or something else of that sort to the clipboard it can be read this
way.
---response 2---
I have Internet Explorer 6+ and IE7 beta. Your "security" measure is a
"security" risk and a privacy issue. Your fix outlined in an earlier email
recommends ALLOWING WEBSITE FREE READ/WRITE ACCESS TO A USER'S CLIPBOARD,
potentially allowing code to be copied to the clipboard, or allowing
private, sensitive information to be collected form the clipboard by a
website.
I have reported this to several security and privacy websites, long with a
copy of the email you sent outlining how to disable this IE security
feature. It has also been posted to the Full-Disclosure mailing list.
You may want to reconsider your "fix" for your insecure, flawed "security"
feature. It is easy to extrapolate that your "fix" may cause a user's
private information to be copied by a 3rd party, identity theft or credit
card charges to occur form that, a direct result of your "fix" , which will
result in a lawsuit naming your company or you specifically as the cause.
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