[117133] in Cypherpunks
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Thu Aug 26 23:46:49 1999
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:10:43 +0200 (CEST)
Message-Id: <199908261810.UAA27287@mail.replay.com>
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
New IE5 Security Bug the Worst Ever?
August 24, 1999
By Brian McWilliams
InternetNews.com Correspondent
Product News Archives
Bulgarian browser bugmeister Georgi Guninski is at it again. The 27-year-old independent computer consultant has
discovered a new security flaw affecting Internet Explorer 5, which enables a malicious hacker to place a program on
the victim's hard disk, to be executed at the next reboot.
Guninski is credited by Microsoft with discovering and publicizing a number of significant security flaws in its Internet
Explorer browser in the past year. While he's also spotted several security bugs in Netscape's Navigator, Guninski is
especially fond of poking holes in Active X, the scripting technology used in IE.
"I think this is the most significant of my discoveries and the most dangerous also," Guninski told InternetNews Radio.
"It allows a Web page or e-mail message to take control of the computer and do anything."
According to Guninski, the attack can be launched by causing IE5 users to click on a hyperlink on a web page, but it
also can be transmitted by e-mail to users of Microsoft's Outlook 98. The exploit places an executable program in an
HTML Application file in a Window 95 or 98 computer's start-up folder. When the victim reboots his or her
computer, the program will execute.
Guninski said the problem lies in an Active X control called "Object for constructing type libraries for scriptlets". He
has posted a demo and source code of the exploit at his Web site.
Microsoft officials were not immediately available for comment. Guninski asserts that the company has reproduced the
bug and plans to issue a patch. In the meantime, concerned IE5 users can protect themselves by going into security tab
of the browser's Internet Options menu, and disabling ActiveX controls or plug-ins.
