Vulnerability Note VU#547212

Microsoft XML Core Services XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret certain HTTP operations

Overview

The Microsoft XML Core Services XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret certain HTTP operations. An attacker who exploits this vulnerability may be able to read cookies or view other sensitive data from a vulnerable system.

I. Description

Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) allow developers who use JScript, Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), and Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 to create XML-based applications. MSXML includes the XMLHTTP ActiveX control, which allows web pages to transmit or receive XML data via HTTP operations.

The XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret HTTP server-side redirects.

Note that an attacker would only need to convince a user to view a malicious webpage to exploit this vulnerability.

II. Impact

Per Microsoft, An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could read cookies or other data from another security zone or domain in Internet Explorer.

III. Solution

Update

Microsoft has released an update to address this issue. See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-061 for more details.

Disable ActiveX

Disabling ActiveX controls in the Internet Zone (or any zone used by an attacker) will remove an attack vector for this vulnerability. Instructions for disabling ActiveX in the Internet Zone can be found in the Securing Your Web Browser document.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Notified	Date Updated
Microsoft Corporation	Vulnerable	10-Oct-2006

References

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-061.mspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/default.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/10/19/information-on-re-release-of-ms06-061.aspx

Credit

Thanks to Microsoft for supplying information about this vulnerability.

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

Date Public:	2006-10-10
Date First Published:	2006-10-10
Date Last Updated:	2006-10-31
CERT Advisory:
CVE-ID(s):	CVE-2006-4685
NVD-ID(s):	CVE-2006-4685
US-CERT Technical Alerts:
Severity Metric:	0.39
Document Revision:	24

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Produced 2006 by US-CERT, a government organization
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