New security group patches latest IE bug
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. may be waiting until next month to patch a nasty bug in Outlook and Internet Explorer, but security researchers are offering users a more immediate option. A loose affiliation of security researchers going by the name of ZERT (Zeroday Emergency Response Team) has released a patch for the VML (Vector Markup Language) vulnerability, which increasingly is beingÂ exploited by criminals in malware attacks. Microsoft is scheduled to fix the bug on Oct. 10, the date it has set to release its monthly batch of security updates, but the company is under increasing pressure to release an earlier, "out-of-cycle" patch. On Friday the SANS Internet Storm CenterÂ raised its alert level from green to yellow, an indication that attacks are becoming more widespread. Microsoft has suggested a number of work-arounds to the problem, and the software vendor does not recommend that users install the ZERT patch, released Friday. "We think itâs great that there are people out there working to help protect our customers. But as we've always said, we cannot endorse third party updates," wrote Microsoft Security Response center program manager Scott Deacon in aÂ blog posting Friday. Microsoft's suggested work-around can be foundÂ here. Microsoft rigorously tests its patches to try to cut off any problems that the new software might introduce. The ZERT patch has not been widely tested and could introduce new problems when installed, security experts warn. ZERT plans to continue to release its own patches when particularly critical unpatched flaws begin to pose a "serious risk to the public, the infrastructure of the Internet or both," the group claims in a manifesto, published on itsÂ Web site . "The purpose of ZERT is not to 'crack' products, but rather to 'uncrack' them by averting security vulnerabilities in them before they can be widely exploited," the group says. ZERT sprang out of discussions on e-mail lists set up a few years ago by security researcher Gadi Evron, said ZERT member Randy Abrams, director of technical education with Eset LLC in San Diego. "Microsoft wants to assign a monthly patch and we understand that," said ZERT member Roger Thompson, who is chief technology officer with Atlanta's Exploit Prevention Labs Inc. "There's a certain benefit of staying on the monthly patch, but when things start to pop, as we think this VML thing is, there's a need to do something." The group's formation was spurred by Microsoft's WMF (Windows Metafile) vulnerability, which emerged in late 2005. Tens of thousands of Microsoft users downloaded third-party patches to fix that bug and Microsoft was eventually forced to release an out-of-cycle patch to address the problem. "This has been the first real vulnerability [since then] that the members have felt can be patched fairly quickly," Abrams said. Microsoft clearly does not want its users to get into the habit of installing third-party security patches, so if the ZERT software is widely downloaded, Microsoft may move more quickly with its own VML patch, Abrams said. "It might force Microsoft's hand on an out-of-cycle patch," he said
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Code that exploits a serious, yet-to-be-patched hole in Microsoft's Web browser has been posted on the Net.
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Microsoft Corp.  on Tuesday  released a security patch to fix a "critical" hole in its  Internet Explorer Web browser that the world's biggest software  maker said could allow an attacker to take control of a user's  computer.
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Zombie Armageddon averted Microsoft has broken its normal release schedule to publish a security patch to address a critical vulnerability in Internet Explorer that has become the target of widespread hacking attacks.â¦
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A variant of a bug that uses an Internet Explorer 6 vulnerability exposes Microsoft Windows systems patched with Service Pack 2. A security researcher claims to have crafted a simpler version of a bug first identified in late October.
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A wave of bugs in the plug-in technology used by Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser has some security experts, including those at US-CERT, recommending that users disable all ActiveX controls.The U. S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), part of the federal government's Department of Homeland Security, put it bluntly in advisories posted in the last two days: encourages users to disable ActiveX controls as described in the Securing Your Web Browser document," the organization recommended.US-CERT's advice was prompted by multiple vulnerabilities in high-profile ActiveX components used by members of the popular Facebook and MySpace social networks, as well as users of Yahoo's music services.Three new vulnerabilities in the photo uploader software used by both Facebook and MySpace were disclosed Monday by researcher Elezar Broad, who on Monday also posted sample attack code for a pair of critical bugs in Yahoo's Music Jukebox.Last week, Broad had pinned the Facebook and MySpace ActiveX controls with two other flaws. All five of the Facebook/MySpace vulnerabilities originated with an ActiveX control developed by Aurigma.As the number of vulnerabilities mounted, security professionals began ringing the alarm. On Monday, for instance, Symantec analysts urged users to "use caution when browsing the Web" and told IT administrators to disable the relevant ActiveX controls by setting several "kill bits" in the Windows registry.US-CERT, however, offered up more aggressive advice as it recommended users move IE's security level to the "High" setting, which completely disables all ActiveX controls.Setting IE's security level to 'High' disables all ActiveX controls. To get here, select Internet Options from the Tools menu, then click on the Security tab. Click Internet at the top for the zone, then move the slider up to the maximum."That's the easiest way to protect yourself," agreed Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec's security response group. "But it can also have an adverse impact on your browsing experience." A compromise, said Friedrichs, would be to disable "only those plug-ins that pose a current and imminent threat," such as the flawed ActiveX controls used by Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo.Disabling individual ActiveX controls, however, requires editing the Windows registry, a task too scary for most consumers to contemplate.Not so in business. "That approach is hard to argue against in the enterprise," said Friedrichs, who noted that there are tools available that let corporate IT administrators push registry changes -- including new keys that disable specific ActiveX controls -- to all users.The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) acknowledged that setting kill bits is beyond the ken of most users; one of its researchers came up with a graphical interface-based tool that sets and clears the kill bits of six ActiveX controls that have been tagged with bugs in the past week. The free tool can be downloaded from the ISC's Web site.The SANS Institute's free 'kill bit' tool provides checkbox-simple settings to disable half a dozen ActiveX controls. It's much easier than monkeying with the Windows registry."This is an easy way to disable the ActiveX control [for people] who don't know how to modify the keys directly," said Friedrichs.As if to emphasize the seriousness of the ActiveX problem, Friedrich's team warned customers Monday that attack code targeting one of the two Yahoo Music Jukebox bugs was on the loose. "Just one day after the proof of concept was released, in-the-wild exploitation was identified in our crawler honeypots," Patrick Jungles, a Symantec analyst, said in an alert to customers of the company's DeepSight threat network.Browser plug-in problems are anything but rare, said Friedrichs. "In the first half of 2007, Symantec counted 237 plug-in vulnerabilities. That's compared to 108 in all of 2006." The vast majority of those bugs -- 89 percent in fact -- were in ActiveX controls, making IE by far the most popular target for plug-in exploits.Last week, Facebook and MySpace said that they had come up with fixes for the vulnerabilities Broad had initially spotted, saying through a spokeswoman that they were "working to individually alert users of any additional steps that need to be taken to ensure user security." The two companies did not immediately respond to queries Tuesday about the newest bugs, however.As of mid-day Tuesday, Yahoo had not yet replied to questions posed the day before concerning the Yahoo Music Jukebox flaws.
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Microsoft on Tuesday issued a patch for an earlier discovered flaw in Visual Studio 2005, while yet another cumulative patch for Internet Explorer was released, as well as one for a vulnerability within the Windows Media Format.
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Third party, fire and theft Security researchers have released a patch designed to protect users against an outstanding Internet Explorer vulnerability in the absence of available security updates from Microsoft.â¦
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Three more vulnerabilities in Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer 6.0 browser were disclosed Wednesday by Danish security vendor Secunia, bringing the total of IE bugs found by the firm in the last two months to an even dozen.
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Microsoft has offered a technical workaround for Internet Explorer users who have found their browsers crashing after installing a recent set of security patches.Last Tuesday,&#160;Microsoft issued a critical security update for its browser software, fixing bugs in the browser. But soon after, users began reporting that IE would crash while visiting certain Web sites. These users would be forced to restart the browser after receiving an &quot;Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close&quot; message.Microsoft now says that the problem is not widespread and affects certain custom installations of Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, Service Pack 2.Customers who experience this problem can fix it by making changes to the Windows registry, described in this Knowledge Base article.Microsoft did not say what kind of customization would cause the bug, and company representatives were not immediately available for comment.Some newsgroup users are speculating, however, that the issue may be related to antivirus software. Symantec and McAfee users who have been experiencing the problem have been able to resolve the issue by uninstalling the security update and then uninstalling their antivirus software, installing the update and then reinstalling their AV products, said Frank Saunders, a Windows user who has been following discussion of the issue.The Internet Explorer patch associated with this problem -- MS07-069 -- is considered to be the most important of last week&#39;s updates because it fixes four critical vulnerabilities in the browser.
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A Chinese security group has released sample code to exploit two new unpatched flaws in Microsoft Windows. The advisory comes in the week before Christmas, a time when many companies and home users are least prepared to deal with the problems.
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A group of software engineers who specialize in cracking code has delivered a patch for the new "zero day" flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, beating Redmond to the punch in addressing the critical vulnerability.
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The &quot;highly critical&quot; vulnerabilities stem from a flaw in IE&#39;s drag-and-drop feature and in the browser&#39;s security zone.
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Microsoft's monthly set of security patches fix problems in Windows, Internet Explorer and the SSL software used for secure Web browsing.
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A security issue has been discovered in a common feature included in several Web browsers, including Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Camino.
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SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. released a critical security patch Wednesday to fix a flaw in its Internet Explorer Web browser that could allow an attacker to run malicious software on another person&#39;s computer.
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Security experts are warning of a new and highly critical security flaw in Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Internet Explorer, when running under Windows XP SP2.