Topic: Microsoft IE Devenum.dll COM Instantiation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Release Date: 2005-08-10

CVE CAN ID : CAN-2005-1990

Affected system:
==============
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 SP4
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1

Description:
==========

NSFocus Security Team discovered a security vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer. By crafting a malicious HTML page and alluring users to visit it, a remote attacker can execute arbitrary code with the privilege of the user.

Internet Explorer does not properly call interface arguments when instantiating COM component in devenum.dll, resulting in exceptional memory access which might cause IE to crash. Carefully crafted HTML page might allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code.

Workaround:
===========
Disable ActiveX control in Internet Explorer.

Vendor Status:
============

2005.07.13 Informed the vendor.
2005.07.16 The vendor confirmed the vulnerability
2005.08.09 The vendor releases a security bulletin (MS05-038) and related patches.

Detail Microsoft Security Bulletin is available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS05-038.mspx

Additional Information:
==================

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the name CAN-2005-1990 to this issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for security problems. Candidates may change significantly before they become official CVE entries.

Credit:
=====

Hu Qianwei of NSFOCUS Security Team found the vulnerability.