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Comment on A remote code execution vulnerability has been found in Microslop Notepad

Microsoft recently added Markdown support so it can handle things like bold text, links, and images.

But in doing that, they accidentally created a problem where a malicious text file could hide a link inside it. When you open the file, Notepad might follow that link, which could then download and run harmful code on your system.

So now, in the worst case, just opening what looks like a normal text file could put your computer at risk.

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pkjqpg1h@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It’s not about markdown and it wasn’t accidently

“Improper neutralization of special elements used in a command” read

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- pkjqpg1h@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  also this problem was known since 2006: devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060509-30/?p…
  
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Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Can you elaborate a bit on how notepad following a link can result in running arbitrary code? Cause it sounds more like a second vulnerability is involved, because a text editor following a link still shouldn’t result in running whatever code is on the other side of the link.

Though it is a privacy issue on its own, just like a tracking pixel or images in emails.

I’m also curious what the actual use case is for having a link that notepad automatically follows on load in markdown. Or why they got rid of wordpad (their default rich text editor) and put it into notepad (their plain text editor), ruining one of the reliable things about notepad: it would just show you the actual bytes of the file, whether it was text or not, kinda like a poor man’s hex editor (just without the hex).

Makes me wonder if eventually opening an html file in notepad will make it render it like a browser. “Back in my day, we edited html in notepad instead of browsed it!”

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