* Internet Explorer 0-day exploit

Published: 2005-11-21
Last Updated: 2005-11-21 20:15:54 UTC
by Johannes Ullrich (Version: 4)
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the UK group "Computer Terrorism" released a proof of concept exploit against patched versions of Internet Explorer. We verified that the code is working on a fully patched Windows XP system with default configuration.

The bug uses a problem in the javascript 'Window()' function, if run from 'onload'. 'onload' is an argument to the HTML <body> tag, and is used to execute javascript as the page loads.

The Javascript Window() vulnerability has been known for a few months now, but it has so far been treated as a denial of service (DoS) vulnerability. The author of this PoC figured out a way to use this older vulnerability to execute code.

Impact:
Arbitrary executables may be executed without user interaction. The PoC demo as tested by us will launch the calculator (calc.exe).

In addition ot the PoC 'Calculator' exploit, a reader (thanks Chris R!) submitted a version that opens a remote shell. The PoC exploit allows for easy copy/paste of various shell code snippets.

In itself, the vulnerability will not escalate privileges. We are trying to verify other exploits at this point.

Mitigation:
Turn off javascript, or use an alternative browser (Opera, Firefox). If you happen to use Firefox: This bug is not affecting firefox. But others may. For firefox, the extnion 'noscript' can be used to easily allow Javascript for selected sites only.


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