The Microsoft link doesn't mention this at all, so my guess it's "remote" in the sense that a zip file exploit is "remote"
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...
> How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?
> An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to execute code on the target system. No authentication or user interaction is required..
This is some Eric-Cantona-level gnomic mysticism. I approve.
not sure if the last time was also a RCE specifically, but this by far isn't the first "this shouldn't even be remotely possible" CVE in MS Paint
Could also be some kind of recall feature.
IFF there is a NSA backdoor it likely would be:
- not in paint, but something you can't disable/remove in hardened special purpose windows setups
- not be easily usable by 3rd parties, like some auth accidentally accepting some quite specific other password (e.g. due to some bug reading the expected hash from the wrong place) or similar
lets not forget as much as the NSA might want to spy on you they also want to keep China/Russia out of spying on US companies. A traditional RCE in paint is very counter productive for that.
One one hand they can actively try to work with companies to get secret back doors put in, sure. But I imagine that's not usually very successful. Lavabit chose to go out of business instead of doing so... I wonder who else is out there that we don't know about.
But we also have evidence that they actively look for, buy, and hoard, unknown (to the vendor) exploits for their own possible later use in case they need it for something.
I'm sure you can imagine that it's much more advantageous to keep collecting all kinds of different ways to get into a system in case one method is not applicable for any number of reasons.
unfortunately it made some mistakes and didn't make everything secure.
im sure windows security will get better as models get better...
maybe in six months when we have AGI... . . .