Breaching China’s Green Dam
Chinese authorities are having to grapple with more bad publicity for the “Green Dam-Youth Escort” software that Beijing wants to see included with all PCs sold in China from July 1.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered major security vulnerabilities in the Internet filtering software, according to this report. The authors say that initial testing of version 3.17 of the Green Dam software found serious security holes, which the authors attributed to programming errors.
Worryingly, the report said that once the software is installed, “any Web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer. This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet [a group of software robots that run without a computer owner’s knowledge].”
