Wednesday, March 31, 2004 This is somewhat disconcerting. Reference the recently disclosed Internet Explorer 'bug' presently in the wild [original discussion: http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/358813 with additional input buried thereunder in subsequent threads] allowing for complete remote compromise of the client machine without any user interaction other than viewing a webpage, through yet again, the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. A lot of 'chatter' or very bold claims 'having been the first to see this and analyse it' seem to have appeared recently that would make this particular bug well known for at least 6 weeks now. We must assume that these claimants had immediately notified the manufacturer of this particular device that allows for all of this immediately back then. Accordingly 6 weeks have transpired and to date all users of this particular merchant's product remain vulnerable. It still remains "unpatched". Perhaps to speed things up, the introduction of the Outlook Express email client from the same merchant might be necessary: Commence: Outlook Express number 6 has fairly stringent security settings in default mode, most notable, setting all actions in the so- called 'restricted zone'. This disallows such things as frames, scripting, objects etc. However it does allow from one interesting piece of html Forms: <A href="http://www.microsoft.com";> <FORM action=http://www.malware.com/t-bill.html method=get> <INPUT style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0pt; BORDER-TOP: 0pt; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; BORDER-LEFT: 0pt; CURSOR: hand; COLOR: blue; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0pt; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" type=submit value=http://www.microsoft.com> </A> What is of particular interest is that if we encase our html form with a run-of-the-mill 'link', we are able to spoof in our status bar our true destination: [screen shot: http://www.malware.com/not-good.png 24KB] as well as re-style our form to suit our needs. What we then do is construct our original functional demo to: a) redirect immediately on loading to the 'suggested' address; that is http://www.microsoft.com b) at that instance [prior], drop our malware.exe into our startup folder for execution the next day while the recipient is blissfully unaware viewing the site as indicated. Fully Functional Harmless Demo: http://www.malware.com/not-so-good.zip note: regardless of where this is viewed, it is governed by the 'restricted zone' at all times In this particular demo, we drop malware.exe into C: trivial tweaking via shell or full path places it wherever we like. This fully functional demo is heavily diluted. Practical implementation requires minor modifications on the transmitting client side. This demo will be flagged by AV suites owing to past usage and recognisable code. End Call -- http://www.malware.com
