Vulnerability Note VU#440275

Microsoft Internet Explorer contains buffer overflow in handling of gopher replies

Original Release date: 12 Jun 2002 | Last revised: 12 Jun 2002

Overview

There is a buffer overflow in Internet Explorer when IE receives information from a gopher service.

Description

Gopher is a protocol that presents documents and services in a hierarchal representation, and is similar in some ways to HTTP. Internet Explorer reportedly contains a buffer overflow in the code that processes responses from gopher servers. Although gopher servers are no longer widely supported, Internet Explorer supports gopher. If an intruder can entice or coerce a victim into clicking on a link to a gopher server, and the intruder can control the response from the gopher server (perhaps by constructing his own malicious gopher server), the intruder may be able to use the buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the victim.

This issue was discovered by Jouko Pynnonen of Online Solutions Ltd . Additional information can be found at http://www.solutions.fi/index.cgi/news_2002_06_04?lang=eng and http://microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-027.asp.

Impact

Intruders may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the victim.

Solution

Please see http://microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-027.asp.

Remove the gopher URL handler from IE, and block requests to gopher servers (TCP/70) and your network perimeter.

Systems Affected (Learn More)

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
Microsoft CorporationAffected-12 Jun 2002
If you are a vendor and your product is affected, let us know.

CVSS Metrics (Learn More)

Group Score Vector
Base N/A N/A
Temporal N/A N/A
Environmental N/A N/A

References

Credit

Our thanks to Oy Online SOlutions LTD, upon whose advisory this document is based, and who discovered the vulnerability.

This document was written by Shawn V. Hernan & Ian A. Finlay.

Other Information

  • CVE IDs: Unknown
  • Date Public: 04 Jun 2002
  • Date First Published: 12 Jun 2002
  • Date Last Updated: 12 Jun 2002
  • Severity Metric: 26.72
  • Document Revision: 14

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