14 DAY TRIAL // A researcher that goes by the name of Max claims to have identified a denial-of-service (DOS) vulnerability that affects fully updated versions of Windows 7 and possibly even Windows Vista.
He reveals that a blue screen of death (BSOD) can be triggered by making a “very specific set of operating system calls.”
Although he hasn’t been able to determine if the security hole can be used by an attacker to execute arbitrary code, he confirms that it could be utilized to corrupt kernel memory and cause a DOS state.
To demonstrate his findings, he published the complete code (written in C) needed to trigger the bug.
Max has been unable to determine what causes the crash, but he believes that it might be “some kind of race condition involving some local procedure calls. “
“I can't say whether or not this bug could be engineered to bring about execution of arbitrary code. That determination needs to be made by a Windows system programmer. Hopefully somebody at Microsoft will conduct a deeper analysis and fix this problem,” he wrote next to the proof-of-concept.
I will attempt to contact Microsoft representatives to see if they can tell us whether the vulnerability can be used to execute arbitrary code.
Update. Microsoft representatives have responded to the inquiry I've sent them. They haven't been able to provide any specific details because they're still investigating the issue.
“We are investigating the issue reported in this post and will take the appropriate measures to help protect customers,” said Dave Forstrom, Director, Trustworthy Computing Microsoft.