RE: Auto-update of an application, permission problem in "Program Files"

Hi Francois,

The problem of your current solution is that the bad guy also has the
permission of replace your plug-in dlls. So he may replace your dlls with
his malicious Troy dll, which injects malicious code into machine.

In this scenario, below is the recommended solution:
1. Coding a separate Windows Service as a broker process which runs under a
high priviledge account, such as LocalSystem or Administrator.
2. When you need to update the plug-in dlls, your normal application can
use some type of inter-process communication technology to ask write
request to the Windows Service, and the Windows Service with high
priviledge work on behalf of your application to write "Program Files" for
replacing the old dlls with new ones.(which are read-only to your normal
user account)

This is a safe solution since we separate the high priviledge
operations/code from the normal operation code. Also, by defining a
well-defined interface between the normal game application and the Windows
Service, we expect it to be safe. In this mode, the Windows Service
application is called a permission broker application. Microsoft IE7
protected mode uses 2 broker applications for high priviledge write
operation which idea is the same here. Please refer to the "Understanding
Protected Mode" section in link below to see these 2 broker processes:
"Understanding and Working in Protected Mode Internet Explorer"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/IETechCol/d
nwebgen/ProtectedMode.asp

A variation of this solution is coding a separate high-priviledge updating
application. While asking for updating, your normal application can use
ShellExecute API with "runas" parameter to run the updating application
under the full administrator token, which has the permission of writting to
the "Program Files". This approach has the advantage of prompting the end
user with a consent dialog for updating, which aligns with Vista UAC
behavior. See the "Run as administrator" section in the link below for
details:
http://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/archive/2006/09/29/Windows-Vista-for-Develo
pers-_1320_-Part-4-_1320_-User-Account-Control.aspx

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Jeffrey Tan
Microsoft Online Community Support
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