IE Flaw Affects Windows XP SP2 Systems
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Microsoft on Thursday flatly denied reports that one of Windows XP Service Pack 2&#39;s most touted features leaves users open to possible attacks.
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The &quot;highly critical&quot; vulnerabilities stem from a flaw in IE&#39;s drag-and-drop feature and in the browser&#39;s security zone.
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(InfoWorld) - For the second week in a row, independent security researchers have fixed a hole in Microsoft Corp.'s software. On Friday, Determina Inc.Â published a free patch for a critical bug in an ActiveX control (called WebViewFolderIcon) that is used by Windows' graphical user interface. Security experts consider the flaw to be critical because it could be exploited by attackers to run unauthorized code on a victim's PC. To make this happen, the victim would have to visit a Web site with Internet Explorer (IE) and allow it to run a malicious ActiveX control. Security researcher HD MooreÂ published details of the bug on July 18, but he recently added attack code that exploited the flaw to his widely-used Metasploit hacking toolkit. Determina says that the availability of the Metasploit code has boosted the risk of attacks. There seems to be no shortage of Windows attacks this week. On Tuesday, MicrosoftÂ issued a rare emergency patch for a separate problem in Outlook and IE's Vector Markup Language (VML) rendering engine, after that flaw was widely exploited by attackers. And criminals have also launched extremely limited attacks that exploit an unpatched flaw in PowerPoint. The VML flaw had first been fixed four days ahead of Microsoft's patch by a group of security researchers calling themselves the Zeroday Emergency Response Team. This latest bug is not likely to be as widely exploited as the VML vulnerability, Moore said. "This bug is not as severe as the VML flaw, since it depends on ActiveX, and would not be exploitable by default through Outlook," he said in an e-mail. Nevertheless, Microsoft found the issue to be serious enough to meritÂ a security advisory, published Thursday. Microsoft plans to patch the WebViewFolderIcon flaw in its next scheduled set of security updates, due Oct. 10. So far, Microsoft doesn't know of "any attacks attempting to use the reported vulnerability or of customer impact at this time," the security advisory states. Microsoft does not recommend that users install third-party patches, because this software has not gone through the rigorous quality assurance testing process that Microsoft applies to its security updates. Determina's patch works on Windows 2000, XP and 2003 systems. Â
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PC Magazine - A malicious PDF is exploiting a URL-handling flaw in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 running IE7.
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Floor by flaw The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows and (in the case of Firefox) Unix systems are vulnerable to attacks that could reveal the contents of sensitive files residing on a victim's hard drives.â¦
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A bug in Microsoft&#39;s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0 can let hackers spoof Web content, such as a trusted site, with their own fake content, the Redmond
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(InfoWorld) - One day after patching a widely exploited flawÂ in its Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft Corp. has a new bug to worry about, this time in PowerPoint. Attackers have been exploiting a newly discovered bug in Microsoft's Office presentation software in extremely targeted attacks, McAfee Inc. reported Wednesday. Researchers were made aware of the attacks when a customer submitted two different malicious PowerPoint files, both of which exploited the same vulnerability, said Craig Schmugar, a virus researcher at McAfee. Both files installed malicious remote access Trojan software that then attempted to connect to an outside Web server, he said. Though McAfee is not releasing technical details of the exploit, the security vendor says that it has confirmed that the attack works on three versions of Office running on the Windows 2000 operating system: Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003. Other platforms and other Office applications may also be affected, but McAfee has not yet had time to complete its testing, Schmugar said. Schmugar has blogged about the issueÂ  . Microsoft issued a security advisory on the matter Wednesday, saying that the issue affects users of Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office 2003, and Microsoft Office XP, as well as Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac. Microsoft's advisory can beÂ found here. As a workaround, Microsoft suggests that users open and view files using PowerPoint Viewer 2003. This software "does not contain the vulnerable code and is not susceptible to this attack," the advisory states. The PowerPoint viewer can beÂ downloaded here. Microsoft and other security vendors, including Symantec Corp. and McAfee, have added signatures to their security products so that they can detect this malicious code. Over the past few months, attackers have focused on Office, exploiting a number of undisclosed Office bugs in extremely targeted attacks, often on government agencies or contractors. These attacks usually take the form of an e-mail that has a malicious Office document attached and is sent to a small number of target victims This latest PowerPoint attack fits that pattern and was sent to a defense contractor, Schmugar said. He declined to provide further details on the intended victim. Because the attack has been extremely limited in scope it is considered to be a low risk for most users, Schmugar said. News of the attack comes the day afterÂ Microsoft issued an emergency patch for a widely exploited bug that affected the VML (Vector Markup Language) rendering engine used by Internet Explorer and Outlook. Hackers are exploiting this critical flaw in the browser via mass e-mail and on thousands of Web sites, security experts said. Microsoft's next set of security patches will be released Oct. 10. The software vendor did not say whether it plans to patch this latest PowerPoint flaw.
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Will a trifecta try at fixing Internet Explorer patch be the charm?
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Attacks exploit IE flaw, and allow attacker to gain complete control of your PC.
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Plus: A new vulnerability in Windows XP, and Excel has trouble with math.
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Microsoft Corp. rushed out a fix Tuesday for a security flaw in its Internet Explorer Web browser after attackers had begun exploiting the vulnerability to take control of computers.
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The &quot;highly criticial&quot; vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 5.01, 5.5, and 6 on fully patched PCs running either Windows XP SP1 or the newer SP2.
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Learn about the plethora of security enhancements included in Windows XP Service Pack 2, as well as how these security features could impair the functionality of some applications.
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p2pnet.net News:- Windows XP users should check for spyware before installing SP2, says Microsoft. Some spyware could cause computers to freeze if the update is loaded, warns Barry Goff, a group product manager quoted by Associated Press here.
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Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer, used on a machine with the Mozilla Foundation&#39;s Firefox browser installed, can create a pass-along security breach, according to security researchers.
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Stop us if you've heard this before Security experts warn a new, unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer might be used to spread malware. A flaw in Microsoft's Direct Animation Path (daxctle.ocx) ActiveX control, rated as critical by Secunia and other security watchers, has spawned proof of concept code but has not yet become the subject of widespread, hostile attack. Memory corruption is possible even on a fully patched Windows XP system.â¦
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Part of the recently-released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was a slew of long-awaited updates to Internet Explorer. Along with patches for the browser, SP2 also included features such as the ability to block