● 08.26.08

●● Novell Supports Microsoft ActiveX, Leaves Windows Open for Hijackers

Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Security, Vista, Windows at 4:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic].”

–Miguel de Icaza

Novell, whose on-line shop requires that the buyer uses Internet Explorer, is also an embracer of ActiveX, a nasty poison which Microsoft devised in order to break the Web, bring Netscape to its knees, potentially make more back doors, and make third-party information and services dependent on Microsoft Windows.

We posted some links to ActiveX menaces here (noted related to this are here). Novell’s naive support of ActiveX is costing it now. A new Novell/Microsoft bug enables people to hijack computers, contributing to an already large pool of about 320,000,000 zombie PCs.

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Attackers can exploit bugs in Novell Inc.’s iPrint application to obtain corporate information or hijack computers, security experts said today.

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Novell has issued a patch that plugs multiple holes in the ActiveX control that Novell ships as part of its iPrint product, but according to Copenhagen-based bug tracker Secunia APS, one of the flaws remains unfixed.

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If Novell uses ActiveX, does it mean that it turns its back on Firefox? And on GNU/Linux? Either way, it does not look good.

Novell: Vista supporter, IE supporter, ActiveX supporter, .NET supporter, XAML supporter. Just lovely. █

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