Serious IE Hole Opens PCs Up to Attacks
The flaw, a heap buffer overflow, is in the way IE handles two attributes of the "frame" and "iframe" HTML elements. An exploit currently circulating uses overly long SRC and NAME attributes to cause IE to execute an attacker's shell code, according to US-CERT.
Users could be attacked via a malicious Web page viewed in an affected version of IE or possibly through an HTML e-mail viewed in an application such as Outlook, Outlook Express, AOL or Lotus Notes that relies on the WebBrowser ActiveX control, according to researchers.
The bug has been confirmed in IE 6.0 on Windows XP with SP1 and all patches installed, as well as the same browser on a fully patched Windows 2000, according to an advisory from security firm Secunia. Microsoft Corp. has not yet released a patch.
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