Several Critical MSIE Flaws Uncovered

An anonymous reader writes "Several flaws have been uncovered by security firm eEye in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The flaws allow remote compromise of computers running Windows Operating Systems and affect IE, Outlook and possibly other MS software. With the next MS Windows security bulletin release scheduled for June 14, 2005 news sources are reporting that in comparison with the Mozilla Foundation's prompt fix for the recently reported Mozilla 1.0.3 vulnerabilities MS appear to be leaving a large window for the possible malicious exploitation of these flaws."

Thanks Microsoft!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I know some people around the Mozilla camp were a bit afraid of how the media would cover their recent security problems. But, once again, Microsoft's really come through by offering problems of their own to take the spotlight off Firefox.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[Karzz1 (306015)]

Is it just me, or have there been a ton of browser vulnerabities discovered recently? It seems that every couple of weeks or so there is a hole found in IE or Firefox/Mozilla or others even. Are security firms concentrating their efforts on browsers or are browsers simply more inherently insecure than most other software?

Vulnerabilities

[Mark_MF-WN (678030)]

Browsers are easily the most common way of accessing network resources of all kinds. Virtually all ecommerce, business, data access, etc, goes through a browser. Lots of people access their email through a browser, and that tendency seems to be increasing. This makes browser security absolutely paramount. It is the biggest gateway into the system.

Re:Vulnerabilities

[sl70 (9796)]

Browsers are easily the most common way of accessing network resources of all kinds. Virtually all ecommerce, business, data access, etc, goes through a browser.

Damn this is true! I went to my insurance agent the other day, and he uses IE to access all my account information that is stored on the headquarters's server. Made me want to reconsider my choice of insurance companies.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[m50d (797211)]

I think it's that browsers are more hacked-together. No one would be stupid enough to try and make an email client be an applications platform - but that's exactly what both mozilla and MS do with their browsers. That leaves a whole lot of exploitability.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[bunratty (545641)]

No, Mozilla uses an applications platform so that the developers can easily write cross-platform code. It's just that they also developed that platform, and it's also called Mozilla. Mozilla-the-browser (and also Firefox and Thunderbird) run on top of Mozilla-the-platform.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[eyegone (644831)]

No one would be stupid enough to try and make an email client be an applications platform

Ever hear of Lotus Notes?

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[Kent Recal (714863)]

Ever hear of Lotus Notes?

Yes, I have and it is a nice proof for grandparents statement.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[hey! (33014)]

Well, except you really have it backwards.

Notes is a messaging/workflow management application platform that can be trivially used as an email system, a use for which it is overkill, given that the least common denominator capabilities of Internet email systems are so extremely limited.

I think Notes is mispositioned in a marketing sense, given what it is. It completes against Exchange, which truly is an email system that has been overextended into a platform. This naturally leads to a lot of dissatisfaction with the product when it's used for plain old Internet email, which it is 90% of the time. Most IT departments don't have enough on the ball to develop workflow management applications, or even use non-Microsoft products.

It's too bad, because there's a lot of good stuff in there.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[n0-0p (325773)]

Well, I assess software for a living, and in my experience it's a combination of several things that makes browsers so difficult to secure.

• Browsers are in general extremely complex apps and complexity leads to security issues
• Browsers generally contain parsers for a large number of file types, and parsers are notorious for security issues
• Browsers must deal with cross domain concerns (local system vs. remote sight), which can be very tricky
• Most browsers were initially developed during the internet boom when features ruled and security was a foreign word

IE in particular has the deck stacked against it because it was pretty much ignored in the MS security push that started in 2002. The team had already been disolved and the app was in maintenance mode. They just didn't commit the resources to dig into the code and do a thorough security review like they did with most of their apps. Instead there were some tacked on fixes like shuffling the zones, modifying ActiveX prompts, and disabling most functionality in Server 2K3. I personally have no question that they regret that decision, and we'll see what happens with IE7 this summer.

Re:IE7

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yes, all the Linux, UNIX, OS/2, Solaris, etc. etc. users are going to dump Firefox and switch their systems to Windows so they can use IE7 and then Firefox will die.

Re:IE7

[The Snowman (116231)]

I don't see how basically a patch against what is most often just a few lines of code can open more holes, either. That's just dumb.

I see you have never worked on an enterprise-class application, otherwise you would know that just changing the boolean algebra inside an if() statement can have catastrophic consequences. Usually what happens is there is a bug. To fix this bug, the developer must modify this conditional (i.e. a transaction is not always processing because the if() skips it under weird circumstances). However, there is some obscure requirement that, despite being well-documented, is difficult to understand. That if() statement has conflicting requirements, and the logic needs to be expanded to accomodate both situations. However, desparate for a quick, one line fix, the developer changes a single line (or character, e.g. "!" not logic). This breaks a bunch of other stuff.

Some applications are like a house of cards -- precariously perched, even one small error can bring the whole structure down. Good configuration and requirements management can mitigate this risk, but the possibility of error is always there.

Re:IE7

[Aadain2001 (684036)]

Just FYI: IE only starts faster because MS preloads it into memory at startup. To compare FF to IE on (more)equal footing, start FF and then try to open a new window. This is closer to how IE works on Windows.

There's more than simple buffer overflows

[n0-0p (325773)]

String handling is not not the only kind of parser attack, and buffer safe routines do not necessarily protect you from the full range of buffer issues that can occur. Integer issues in particular are a growing concern even with buffer safe libraries. Your average programmer does not have an in depth understanding of the C standard on things like type promotion and sign extension. Google on David LeBlanc's SafeInt library and look over the code for some in depth understanding of this.

Of course, there's a lot of fertile territory in parsers for all sorts of non-buffer related exploits. Cross domain context and external includes were both used in the most recent Firefox exploits. These issues are not unique to XML and HTML formats. I've seen exactly the same problems occur in binary OLE document handlers. This is why I stated that the parsers as a whole are complex issues. They touch so many areas and intermingle so many other concerns that they can be a security nightmare.

Re:Thanks Microsoft!

[wfberg (24378)]

Browsers are like cheerleaders. They're popular, and they might say they use protection, but you'd better know they get around.

Dupe?

[Kohath (38547)]

Is this story a dupe?

I could swear I read about security problems in MSIE before...

Re:Dupe?

[HermanAB (661181)]

No, it is all the people that are still using MSIE that are duped.

Great..

[Marble68 (746305)]

I'm stuck with an internal deveopment team making web apps (in .Net) that require IE.. And a bunch of users who will click on anything. Although exploits were found in Firefox, they were patched rapidly. It's not standard on all our desktops. I wish there was a "corporate" browser with minimal features to reduce exposure. Sort of like IE lite.

Re:Great..

[0x461FAB0BD7D2 (812236)]

IE lite? You mean less features than IE already has? I think that's called telnet isn't it?

Re:Great..

[VStrider (787148)]

IE lite? You mean less features than IE already has? I think that's called telnet isn't it? Excellent! Plus...telnet will keep you insecure, in the spirit of IE.

Re:Great..

[Mz6 (741941)]

I've found that most corporate sites, both internal and external, require MORE features than most regular web sites. An IE Lite that cuts down on that, would take away those flashy "features" :)

Block IE from connecting to the outside world

[tepples (727027)]

I wish there was a "corporate" browser with minimal features to reduce exposure. Sort of like IE lite.

It's called denying iexplore.exe and other apps known to embed the IE OCX the right to connect to the public Internet on port 80, using a software firewall on each machine or a proxy server that only Firefox knows about.

But thats not fair!

[by Anonymous Coward]

People taking advantage of Microsoft's upgrade release cycle to discover security flaws when there's a month to go to the next upgrade!

I hereby demand that everyone only look for security flaws the week before the scheduled security update so that Microsoft can continue to claim it patches all their flaws in a timely manner!

Re:But thats not fair!

[joeljkp (254783)]

I simply don't understand the policy of scheduling security patches. If a vulnerability is found, isn't the best policy to release the patch as soon as it is available (and properly tested)?

This seems akin to scheduling firefighter visits every two weeks, and if your house catches fire in the meantime, being told to wait it out.

The scheduling is meant for enterprises

[n0-0p (325773)]

Organizations want to schedule their downtime and the "Black Teusday" policy makes it easier for them to do that and keep good looking metrics. All the places I've worked at have a scheduled outage the second Friday of every month. This gives a few days to do test deployments of the patches before rolling them out to the enterprise. Metrics still look great because IT can say they deployed all critical patches in under three days.

Good for bidness

[yofal (168650)]

There's no rush cause we've got something to sell!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/onecare/default.m spx [microsoft.com]

IE is not a Browser

[mfh (56)]

Using IE as a browser is like putting your OS on the internet. Be smart, use a PROGRAM, not your OS to surf the web. Get Firefox http://getfirefox.com [getfirefox.com].

Re:IE is not a Browser

[gvc (167165)]

Using Windows *is* putting your OS on the internet.

Although Windows has non-privileged user accounts, they are essentially useless. I tried to set up my mother and my daughter with these, and they were just a pain in the neck. So they, along with just about everybody else, run administrator-privilege accounts.

If I'm running as a non-privileged user, the most a javascript hack can do is mess up my account.

So for most Windows machines, any old application program (and Firefox is just any old application) is an open wound.

If Microsoft want to get serious about security, they'll have to change the run-as-administrator culture. To do this they'll have to:

(a) make it easy, and the default, to run
without privilege

(b) make it unpleasant to run with privilege

I won't bet on an attitude adjustment - from Microsoft or from Windows users - any time soon.

Re:IE is not a Browser

[QuietLagoon (813062)]

While I agree 100% with your comment, there is another factor here as well, third-party software. For example, I maintain the PC for my cousin's family. They run Windows XP with individual [non-privileged] user accounts, and one password-protected admin account that is used only when I'm on the phone with them.

It has been working OK, except for some thrid-party software. One example, Kodak's EasyShare. Everytime a user logs into their account, EasyShare puts up a modal dialog box stating that some features may not be available unless the user account is raised to admin privilege.

This causes two problems: I get questions about the presence of the dialog box, and I get questions about the missing features.

While it is often correct to blame Microsoft, Kodak is the problem in this instance, not Microsoft.

Re:admin privilege req'd

[Baron_Yam (643147)]

Try printing from MS Publisher or editing an MS Org chart in PowerPoint; Neither will work unless you have admin privilege, because both expect to write to %systemroot%.

If MS doesn't care about the problem (and these two examples are still present in the latest version without any apparent intention of being fixed), why should 3rd party software develpers care?

Re:admin privilege req'd

[man_of_mr_e (217855)]

I've never had a problem with Publisher 2003 needing systemroot access. If you're running older versions, you don't need to give them root access. All you need to do is give them write permission to the directory without replacing the permissions on the files within, that way nothing alter existing files. There's nothing special about systemroot other than it's a place many system files are stored.. let the user create new files there isn't going to comprimise security any more than letting them create new files somewhere else.

Re:IE is not a Browser

[Tibor the Hun (143056)]

Go easy on him, he must be new around here.

SP2 and Win2k3?

[sriram_2001 (670877)]

Weird - the advisory doesn't mention SP2 specifically.Also, it has 'to be determined' next to Windows 2003.

Poor choice of slogan

[rokzy (687636)]

who came up with the clever design idea of making eEye's slogan "Vulnerabilty Is Over" and then pasting it at the bottom of each vulnerability report as if it's a status message?

reminds me of the Simpsons scene where someone is reporting a crime via a radio and says "over" at the end of the transmission. then Wiggum says "thank god that's over". karma for the first person to find the quote, but I only have the real kind not the /. stuff.

Re:Poor choice of slogan

[dark-br (473115)]

Marge: [on radio] Husband on murderous rampage. Send help. Over.
Chief Wiggum: Whew, thank God that's over. I was worried for a little bit.

Ok, now where is mar karma? ;)

Other Winggum quotes here [thesimpsonsquotes.com].

The Known Flaws.

[rtb61 (674572)]

I have often also wondered about all those flaws that have been discovered and not declared, just quitely made use of. At least with open source the oppurtunity for discovery as well as a rapid fix has become obvious.

A large window?

[ninja_assault_kitten (883141)]

You need to realize that there's a difference betwen public and private disclosure.

I happen to know for certain that Mozilla was aware of the vulnerabilities to which you speak at least 10 days before they were publicly disclosed.

Take your head out of the sand and realize that there's more going on around you than meets the eye.

Simple solution: restricted user for browsing

[adam1101 (805240)]

The solution to all these browser exploits (IE, Firefox, Safari) is simple: create a restricted user to run the browser only. This can easily be done in Windows XP/2K, Linux and OS X. Restricted users cannot affect other users or system files. As long as you don't keep important data in this account, you can just periodically erase this user and create a new one.

Ineffective and impossible.

[argent (18001)]

Let's pretend for a moment that this would actually work. It's not possible to get people to implement it.

It's hard enough to get any of the browser teams to commit to implementing a complete sandbox, even though that could be done without inconveniencing the users.

It's hard enough to get users to adjust the sandbox that they're already using so that it's as complete as possible, even though doing so imposes very little invenvenience.

Getting users to go through a lot of inconvenience to create a new account to run their browser in, that's really tough.

But even if you could do it, it wouldn't be effective.

A restricted account could still be used to compromise their privacy, it could still be used to destroy data they consider important... their bookmarks, information maintained on websites they connect to, and so on.

And that's assuming it would remain restricted: once I can run native code on your machine, getting out of a restricted environment is just a matter of time. It's easiest on Windows, of course, but even your typical UNIX or Mac OS X box has all kinds of mechanisms that a restricted account can use to extract information from your "real" account, or launch code (directly or through a boobytrap) into the "real" environment.

The only "restricted environments" I have used that I would consider secure enough to not treat malware running in that account as an immediate threat, apart from physically separate boxes, are FreeBSD Jails or completely emulated systems (VMware, Virtual PC, etc).

But we do know one thing that does work very well. And that's having a sandbox that has no holes in its design. That means there's no holes that the developer's reluctant to close, and no holes that users are reluctant to see closed. That means that any holes that do occur are bugs, and as such can be quickly fixed without embarassment and without discouraging users from applying them.

It's not perfect, but it works much better than a whole sandboxed account, and it's much easier to implement and MUCH more convenient.

So: the first absolute requirement for building a secure web is for the browser manufacturers to commit to a completely closed sandbox. That means there is no mechanism inside the sandbox to get outside the sandbox even as far as to see information stored about other websites. That means: no XPI installers, no ActiveX or Active Scripting, no "open safe files after download", no use of "Desktop" applications to open documents (even if you think the document is local), nothing. Any application you hand off a document to has to be one that has an equal commitment to maintaining that sandbox. If the user wants to do anything like that, they have to explicitly download the document and so move it outside the sandbox, and THEN explicitly open it in the unsandboxed environment. Those two steps must never be shortchanged.

What does that mean to the user, then?

Not much, in most cases. For Firefox users that means they'll have to download XPI files and then load them from the menu or their desktop file manager. For Safari users, no more "open safe files", and no more warnings the first time they open an app because the browser won't ever be opening apps behind their back. For Windows, there would be a bigger impact: a few tools like Software Update would be separate applications, but the bigger impact is that some third-party applications would need to be redesigned to use the new safe API.

Windows, I can see their reluctance. The rest? I don't get it... they're not gaining all that much by having a leaky sandbox, and the fact that even such small leaks can be exploited is sure a good argument for having at the very least no designed-in holes at all.

Lets take them down hard..

[E IS mC(Square) (721736)]

BG: What, Firefox has a critical flaw? They are hogging all media attention for that? Fuck that. Hey tech team, how many more IE vulnerabilities have not been reported yet?

Tech team: 349 that we know of, SIR!

BG: Good. All critical?

Tech team: ALL CRITICAL, SIR! YES SIR!

BG: Good. Hey PR team, take the first 10 of them, contact some security firm and 'leak' them.

PR: YES SIR!

BG: Now we will see what firefox is going to do about this.

(Evil laugh all around)

Not just one!

[vmp17 (680763)]

Although eEyes' reports look a bit confusing (look at the "Vulerability is over" image at the bottom), I think according to this page http://www.eeye.com/html/research/upcoming/index.h tml [eeye.com] there are 3 security vulnerabilities affecting IE and Outlook that allow remote code execution.
The oldest one is 60 days old now and still not fixed.

OOOOLLLLDDD News

[Urgo (28400)]

Sorry but I need to say this..

'Mozilla 1.0.3 vulnerabilities'

That would be Firefox 1.0.3.... Mozilla Suite aka just mozilla and FireFox are two separate programs and have very different versions. Saying Mozilla 1.0.3 is very misleading. Please use the correct name or it makes your news story look very silly. Who cares if a version of mozilla from 2002 [archive.org] has security holes.

</rant>

Possible Wishful Thinking, But... Is IE Pointless?

[FhnuZoag (875558)]

Is Internet Explorer still really of any benefit to Microsoft? Once upon a time, it might have been used to push ActiveX, or reinforce the Windows platform by encouraging integration. But security worries, and legal trouble, have put paid to that...

To my naive eyes, it seems that IE is more trouble than it's worth. It's earlier bugginess puts a weight on later development to duplicate previous rendering errors, and it is strongly challenged by Opera, Mozilla, and the like. Also, their developers have to take care not to break compatiability too much - or at least, to sort out how to get various plugins to work with newer versions. The whole thing is a running sore with regards to their reputation, and the number of idiots running the browser means everything has to be dumbed down.

It seems that the wise thing for Microsoft to do, simply from a selfish level, is to ditch the IE project. Open source what can be open sourced, develop a light, secure, bare-bones and idiot-proof version for bundling with their OS, and re-dedicate their resources elsewhere.

Internet Explorer has no future.

Time for the season finale...

[mtec (572168)]

These are the voyages of the browser Explorer, It's mission; to explore strange new exploits and seek out new viruses and hacker civilizations, to boldly expose data not exposed before!!
*cue music*

Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along

[Liquidrage (640463)]

Yes, it is.

The linked article with the flaws is about as useful as lipstick on a pig. So even when there's something to see there's still nothing to see. I think there's some Taoist wisdom in there somewhere.

Re:Funny how the emphasize

[vegaspctech (769513)]

...in an attempt to take the spotlight off all of the Firefox exploits lately.

ALL of the Firefox exploits lately? In the last two years there have been 17 reported Firefox vulnerabilities and 81 reported Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. The browser with the most recent, critical vulnerability is Internet Explorer. Do tell, where does the spotlight belong?

Re:Funny how the emphasize

[KiloByte (825081)]

It also may be a good idea to compare the criticalness level of MSIE vulnerabilities to the Firefox ones that get published.

People just don't bother with minor problems in IE -- on the other hand, there is much vested interest in digging every smallest issue in Firefox, and dragging it into the press.

Please tell me you don't write code.

[khasim (1285)]

Well, you have to consider also that, Internet Explorer having somewhere in the range of 90% market share as opposed to under 7% market share for Mozilla, about 13 times as many vulnerabilities would logically be found... (and only about 5 times as many are)

No .... that's only "logical" if there is no such thing as "security", just "marketshare".

By your logic, a program written by a first year student who didn't pay any attention to any security would have as many flaws discovered as a program written by an expert who tested for vulnerabilities ....

As long as both of them had the same number of users.

In other words, the flaws aren't errors in code writing, the flaws magically spaw when a certain number of people use it.

No, NO.

[game kid (805301)]

It should have a Javascript DOM-based moving <div> or something. Marquees are, like, so IE3. [microsoft.com]

Better yet, be thoughtful of screen-reader users, and make it a static list [w3.org] that has scrolling abilities [w3.org].

Well, it's not that complex.

[biendamon (723952)]

Let's take a look at why an administrator might say both those quotes.

"Oh, no MS releases too many secuirty patches making my job as an admin hard, what a bunch of A-holes"

Looking at our hypothetical admin's thought processes, what's going through his head might be: "IE is just a damn application, but they've embedded it into the OS. So every time they release a patch for this friggin' application, I have to patch! I'd prefer to just remove the damn thing, but no... There's no uninstaller for it."

And now, let's look at the next quote.

"*Stoopid* MS is going to take a month to release a security patch, what a bunch of A-holes. Firefox ROX#$%^&!"

So what's the administrator thinking on this one? It's pretty simple: "Okay, so now this damnable embedded application, this junk browser that has to be on my operating systems, isn't gonna be patched for a month? The way they did it before would have been acceptable if I could patch the application without worrying about it breaking the OS or making me reboot. But NEITHER of these patching methods works well for me. I've either gotta patch applications that might destabilize my systems all the time, or I've gotta give hackers the keys to my network for a month!"

So, while the point you're trying to make - i.e., that neither of the upgrading options Microsoft has provided are acceptable to admins - is a valid one, it's a situation Microsoft brought on themselves.