full-disclosure - How often are IE security holes exploited?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

From: pauls at utdallas.edu (Schmehl, Paul L)
Subject: How often are IE security holes exploited?

You're going to have to define what you mean by that.  The IE engine is
used in a lot of things.  For example, Outlook Express uses it to
display HTML email.  So, Kak, Klez, Yaha, Braid, Frethem, etc., etc.,
all use weaknesses in IE *in* OE to run.  Just about any VBS virus would
qualify, depending on how you want to define "IE" *(Loveletter,
Bubbleboy, Anna Kournikova, VBS/You-name-it, etc.), JS/Seeker,
JS/Coolsite, etc., etc.  Anything that uses the Windows Scripting Host
and the preview pane could be said to be using IE, because it's the
engine behind the scenes that makes it all possible.

The most common one is "Incorrect MIME Header Can Cause IE to Execute
E-mail Attachment vulnerability (MS01-020)" which is used in a bunch of
viruses/worms - Bugbear, Braid, Shoho, Exploit-MIME.gen, Gop, Yaha,
Klez, Holar, Hobbit, Apix, 

Paul Schmehl (pauls@...allas.edu)
TCS Department Coordinator
The University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard M. Smith [mailto:rms@...puterbytesman.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:33 PM
> To: full-disclosure@...ts.netsys.com; rms@...puterbytesman.com
> Subject: [Full-Disclosure] How often are IE security holes exploited?
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Has anyone ever looked into how often security holes in 
> Internet Explorer are actually used in viruses, worms, Trojan 
> horses, and other malware?  My sense is that very few of them 
> are actually used in the wild.  The KaK and Klez worms both 
> use IE security holes to do their dirty work, but most other 
> Windows viruses seem to rely on social engineering and 
> standard features of Microsoft products.