Fergie's Tech Blog

Inside the WMF 'Backdoor'

Mark Russinovich writes on the SysInternals blog:

Steve Gibson (of SpinRite fame) proposed a theory in his weekly Thursday-night podcast last week that if true, would be the biggest scandal to ever hit Microsoft - that the Windows Metafile (WMF) vulnerability that drew so much media attention last month is actually a backdoor programmed intentionally by Microsoft for unknown reasons. Slashdot picked up the story the next day and I received a flood of emails asking me to look into it. I finished my analysis, which Steve aided by sending me the source code to his WMF-vulnerability tester program (KnockKnock), over the weekend.

In my opinion the backdoor is one caused by a security flaw and not one made for subterfuge. I sent my findings to both Steve and to Microsoft Monday morning, but because the issue continues to draw media attention I’ve decided to publicly document my investigation.

posted by Fergie @ 1/19/2006 07:13:00 AM