Overview
A buffer overflow exists in the Microsoft Windows system library used when handling hyperlinks. All currently supported versions of Microsoft Windows are affected.
Description
An unchecked buffer in the Microsoft Object Library is vulnerable to attack when malformed hyperlinks are handled. Such handling occurs most often when a user clicks on a hyperlink in a browser or in HTML-rendered email. The Object Library is a dynamic application interface library used by Windows programs to manage hyperlink objects. Hyperlink objects are any COM objects (including ActiveX) that implement the IHlink interface. |
Impact
An attacker could execute arbitrary code of their choosing on the system running the vulnerable version of Windows. Upon successful exploitation, the malicious code would be executed with the privileges of the user being attacked. |
Solution
Apply a patch from the vendor |
WorkaroundsAs noted in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-015: Read e-mail messages in plain text format if you are using Outlook 2002 or a later version, or Outlook Express 6 SP1 or a later version, to help protect yourself from the HTML e-mail attack vector. Note that an email-borne attack vector requires a click event on a hyperlink to occur. |
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental |
References
Acknowledgements
Microsoft has acknowledged Anna Hollingzworth as the discoverer of this vulnerability.
This document was written by Jeffrey S Havrilla.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2005-0057 |
| Severity Metric: | 55.28 |
| Date Public: | 2005-02-08 |
| Date First Published: | 2005-02-08 |
| Date Last Updated: | 2005-02-08 22:39 UTC |
| Document Revision: | 11 |