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I have an upcoming exam for a Security course. The following question has come up a couple times in past exams and I could use some help formulating an answer.

Suppose a user downloads an unsigned application software (say an email client) from the Internet. If an attacker is able to inject any arbitrary code into the application, explain with examples how this may compromise confidentiality, integrity and availability of the end users computer system?

My attempts at answering: Availability: The attacker could launch a DoS attack by injecting lots of data through the application, destined for the user's computer, causing it to crash due to too much traffic.

Struggling to think of ways the attacker could compromise Confidentiality and Integrity and would appreciate some help making a start on these.

schroeder
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James Jameson
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    What did you learn from the course? Your availability example seems a bit farfetched while the confidentiality and integrity should be more major concerns with this. Put the question this way: What the attacker may gain, if he has unlimited control over your emails and your computer? – Esa Jokinen Oct 11 '20 at 04:37

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If an attacker is able to inject any arbitrary code into the application, explain with examples how this may compromise confidentiality, integrity and availability of the end users computer system?

On todays operating systems used on PC's, applications generally run with the privileges of the user. This means that they can access whatever the user can access. There's some progress at sandboxing, but as of now, this is not commonly used.

This means that code running can access what the user can - and local privilege escalation vulnerabilities is not that far between, especially if the user is member of Administrators group in Windows.

So the question is really: what can a rougue program with equal access as the user do?

That should be pretty easy to answer.

vidarlo
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