Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook

Gaping Hole in Internet Explorer

In a rare move, Microsoft has released a statement notifying the public of a severe vulnerability in their software that they have not a fix for, yet.

Microsoft is investigating a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. When using Internet Explorer, code execution is remote and may not require any user intervention.

We are aware of attacks attempting to exploit the vulnerability.

Our investigation has shown that there are no by-design uses for this ActiveX Control in Internet Explorer which includes all of the Class Identifiers within the msvidctl.dll that hosts this ActiveX Control. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers, Microsoft is recommending removing support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using all the Class Identifiers listed in the Workaround section. Though unaffected by this vulnerability, Microsoft is recommending that Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 customers remove support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using the same Class Identifiers as a defense-in-depth measure.

Yikes.

Microsoft has a fix for this, but it will basically shut down ActiveX functionality for your Internet Explorer browser.

Other choices are to dump Internet Explorer altogether, and go with Firefox or Opera.

Tags: ActiveX, browsers, Microsoft, security

This entry was posted on July 6, 2009, 8:50 pm and is filed under browsers, security news. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Comments

• #1 by Jan from BetterSpines on July 8, 2009 - 1:25 am

  

  I recognise the words you are using, but I do not understand what you are saying. All I know is , thank goodness I use Firefox.

• #2 by Grampy on July 9, 2009 - 8:48 am

  

  I use firefox. I think it is more reliable.

• #3 by Mrs. Mecomber on July 9, 2009 - 9:18 am

  

  Jan– LOL! Yep, I hear you! I haven’t used Internet Explorer in… gee, must be 8-9 years now!

  Grampy– I do think Firefox is reliable. I also use Opera. Firefox stops responding when I use my wireless connection, and I have been unable to figure out what’s wrong. I really got attached to Opera because it is such a speedy browser.

  Thanks for your comments!

• #4 by Mizé on July 10, 2009 - 7:04 pm

  

  I was having a problem after downloading IE 8, couldn´t open some websites. I decided to go for Firefox and uninstalled IE. Now I know it was their problem, I was wondering if it was my notebook. Thanks for sharing this info
  Good weekend.

• #5 by Mrs. Mecomber on July 11, 2009 - 8:25 am

  

  You’re welcome, Mize!! Have a great weekend.

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