IE7 Vulnerability Discovered

slidersv writes "Not 24 hours after the release of IE7, Secunia reports Internet Explorer Arbitrary Content Disclosure Vulnerability. So much for the "you wanted it easier and more secure" slogan found on Microsoft's IE Website."

two words

[doti (966971)]

ha ha

Re:two words

[parodyca (890419)]

but that was only one word..... twice

Re:two words

[PylonHead (61401)]

Yes, you're right.. it is traditional when releasing a new version of software to THROW OUT ALL YOUR CODE AND START OVER FROM SCRATCH.

I love it when people in the cake decorating industry post to slash dot.

Re:two words

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

One word: Brillant!

Brillant Link.

[Bake (2609)]

Took me all of 3 seconds Googleing for "brillant site:thedailywtf.com".

Paula's Brillant Bean:

http://thedailywtf.com/forums/40043/ShowPost.aspx [thedailywtf.com]

Re:two words

[l_bratch (865693)]

Not an issue - domains actually have a dot at the end, in the format, e.g.:

blabla.tld.

http://www.google.com/ [google.com]
http://www.google.com./ [www.google.com]

Both work.

Re:two words

[knightmad (931578)]

If you are going to do, at least do it right:

ha ha [imageshack.us]

Re:

[OakDragon (885217)]

Interesting... but I always think of this [imageshack.us] when I hear "ha ha."

Re:

[tsjaikdus (940791)]

What a relief they've found the bug. OK, now it's save to use.

Re:two words

[PhrostyMcByte (589271)]

How much you want to bet this guy found the vuln weeks ago, but held off on releasing it so he could brag that he discovered the first IE7 vuln, and it only took him less than 24hr!

IE7 Vulnerability Discovered

[Rik Sweeney (471717)]

In a very motherly voice:

Oh Microsoft, what are we going to do with you, eh?

Re:IE7 Vulnerability Discovered

[Rohan427 (521859)]

Format C:. Install any other OS.

PGA

Browsers are just too complex

[cliffski (65094)]

Thats the root of the problem. I'd wager 90% of the functioanlity for browsers is only used by 5% of end users. Granted a lot of stuff is demanded by web develoeprs who want fancy this, animated that, and sliding and fading the other, but to be honest, most of us dont need any of that junk.
As end users, how much of browser bloat do we really need?
I think there was a slashdot story asking for feature requests for firefox recently. my main request is this please:

less of everything

Its already at the case where im starting to notice how long it takes firefox to start. Sometimes more features does not mean better. Its like anything, cars, mobile phones, TVs, they all have major feature bloat.
I found it actually impossible to buy a new mobile *without* internet access. Its insane. i remember when you didnt have an animated 'startup' screen for your phone, because the damned things just switched on.

Feature bloat -> just say no :D

Re:Browsers are just too complex

[Goaway (82658)]

Here's your porch, here's your chair, and here's your lawn. Now repeat after me, "DAMN KIDS! GET OFFA MY LAWN!"

Re:

[truthsearch (249536)]

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of redirections for URLs with the "mhtml:" URI handler. This can be exploited to access documents served from another web site.

The only reference I could find to an mhtml URI through google (which isn't a vulnerability report) is for HTML email. I've generated multi-part MIME email content and never once came across this type of URI. So if someone could elaborate on why this feature even exists it would be helpful.

Re:Browsers are just too complex

[hey! (33014)]

Thats the root of the problem. I'd wager 90% of the functioanlity for browsers is only used by 5% of end users.

I don't think this is the case, because for the most part users don't choose which broswer features they use; web sites do that for them.

However, I think the web development model is far too complex, which both causes site developers to create security holes in their applications, and creates many places for security holes to exist in the browser itself.

Re:Browsers are just too complex

[acvh (120205)]

While I agree with your No Bloat argument, you neglected an oft overlooked reason that IE contains all these "features", and it's not web developers. It's application developers. There are a slew of vertical market applications that many small to midsize companies are using, where the developer has dropped, or maybe never had, its own user interface, in favor of using IE and ActiveX controls. Insurance brokerages, medical practices, law firms and more, all of them have large, commercial, expensive applications available to them for running their businesses, and many of them are IE based. IE in these cases is just the front end to data stores running on everything from SQL Server on Intel to AIX on Power to whatever. Many times with no Internet connectivity at all.

MSFT can't just disable, drop or change these features, because doing so could break an enter business. So they just pile up more and more code into an already chaotic program.

Helllloo?

[thepotoo (829391)]

Last time I checked, Firefox was open source. You are more than welcome to fork the project and make a "lite" version. I would probably give it a try.

But, don't forget that if you strip away too much, you'll end up with Lynx. Some people like at least images and css, you know?

Re:Browsers are just too complex

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

Thats the root of the problem. I'd wager 90% of the functioanlity for browsers is only used by 5% of end users.

You would lose that wager. 80%+ of the technology that makes web browsers tick is required just to show you a blasted web page. The standardized APIs allow a good way for JavaScript to then make those pages interactive. Not too many sites are JavaScript-free these days.

What I think you're trying to say, is that features above and beyond the W3C standards are:

1. Not useful
2. Poor attempts at lockin
3. Dangerous

If Microsoft would just stick to the bloody standards, we'd all be better off. Unfortunately, they're still in 1995 mode, trying to beat Netscape at their own propertization game. It wouldn't surprise me if the requests for DOM 2 Events support were STILL ignored in this "final" release of IE7. *grumble* And Microsoft thinks developers will like them because of this?

Re:Browsers are just too complex

[cliffski (65094)]

hang on, my dad has a Razor phone, thats exactly the kind of thing I didnt want. thats bloatware extreme. I dont want web acecss, or even the option for it, or the buttons for it, or anything. Not a camera, not a microphone, nada. zip.
I just want a phone. to make and recieve calls. I dont even text.

I know I know, Im old.

Old exploit

[Iphtashu Fitz (263795)]

This exploit exists in IE6. It just means MS didn't fix it in IE7. It's not like it's a new exploit that was quickly discovered within the few hours after IE7 was released.

Re:

[kfg (145172)]

So, what you're saying is that Bill's dog ate the patch?

KFG

Re:Old exploit

[abaddononion (1004472)]

This exploit exists in IE6. It just means MS didn't fix it in IE7. It's not like it's a new exploit that was quickly discovered within the few hours after IE7 was released.

To me, at least, that's kind of the point. I mean, this is an old old IE6 bug, that M$ has known about for a certainly reasonable amount of time. Yet, they still haven't fixed it. And not to say it's a big deal that they haven't fixed it in IE6 yet. It's not like it's a Critical Priority bug (no pirates can steal Windows or MP3s because of it). But they point is, they did their whole "We heard you" campaign, and claimed IE7 was going to be this great new secure landscape... and they didn't even clean up the old IE6 bugs they KNEW about? I mean, seriously, at this point are we supposed to believe that they're even trying?

Re:Old exploit

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

Well, you could argue that it was quickly discovered to still exist in IE7. Interestingly, this vulnerability contradicts claims that IE7 is a rewrite. Clearly, it is not.

Using Vista RC1

[Utopia (149375)]

The Secunia test says I am not vulnerable with Vista RC1

Vista RC1 was released almost a month ago.
So I am surprised this new XP IE7 build still exibits this issue.

Looking at the source, I suspect this is not a IE issue at all, instead this is a MSXML issue.
Vista has anewer version of MSXML.
XP IE7 seems to be using the older version.

 

Misunderstanding

[MrSquishy (916581)]

Maybe the line should read "You wanted it easier AND more secure?".

Let's be fair

[Lars T. (470328)]

The same problem is known on IE 6 since April 2006 [secunia.com]

Re:Let's be fair

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

That makes it worse. Not only is IE7 not a "rewrite" as some claimed, but it doesn't fix known vulnerabilities in its previous version. At least if it was new code, you could understand and expect an unknown vulnerability.

Re:Let's be fair

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

All right, here's just one result from Google: "fundamental rewrite" [wsj.com]

Not much of a surprise

[Salvance (1014001)]

This shouldn't be too much of a suprise ... how many software products are 100% bug free when released, particularly Microsoft's? Anyone who downloads or buys any software within the first few weeks is just asking for it ... and anyone who buys a Microsoft product within the first year is bound to have issues, whether security breaches or just annoying bugs.

News?

[Treacharous (994718)]

Doesn't everyone use firefox anyway?

Come on

[critter_hunter (568942)]

It's a "Less critical" vulnerability - not really dangerous at all. Firefox still has equally important unpatched "vulnerabilities" [secunia.com] - some of which [secunia.com] date back to 2004 [secunia.com]. Retards.

Re:Come on

[truthsearch (249536)]

This IE hole requires no user interaction. Unlike the firefox bugs he links to a simple web page can leverage this IE hole with no extra user input. And considering the URI exploited is used within email I'd imagine Outlook is susceptable, too. So the firefox vulnerabilities mentioned are much less likely to be exploited than this IE hole.

Yawn.

[Honest Olaf (1011253)]

Stretch. Scratch.

Oh, an IE vulnerability? That's cool man.

Hey, anyone want to get some lunch?

IE7 maybe not vulnerable?

[jrsp (513795)]

IE7, freshly installed this morning, on XP SP2 reports not vulnerable. Perhaps it was already patched, or the exposure is more limited than the post implies...

Not an MS fan, but truth and accuracy are always good.

Re:IE7 maybe not vulnerable?

[truthsearch (249536)]

Secunia has confirmed the vulnerability on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 7.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. Other versions may also be affected.

http://secunia.com/advisories/22477/ [secunia.com]

There will always be issues

[Programmer_In_Traini (566499)]

People will always find something. When you got hundreds of thousands of people checking your software for whatever issue they can find, odds are that they WILL find something. Just because its fun to bash MS doesnt mean its feasible to create a software with zero vulnerabilitise, that's impossible, new vulnerabilites are created each weeks.

I mind much less IE's security than IE's compliance to w3 standards. now THAT is annoying. having constantly to create two versions of your code. one for the compliant browsers and then one for IE.

For some reason, the suits at MS thinks that because lots of people use their software they have a moral obligation to tell people what the standards should be. Ok...I know IE7 is not as bad... but its still bad :-)

So much for "more secure"?

[Trillan (597339)]

Dude, 24 hours is more secure for Internet Explorer.

Re:Firefox

[bagboy (630125)]

What was wrong with gopher???

Re:Firefox

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

I don't see what this "web technology" can do that a newspaper can't.

Video pr0n.

Re:Firefox

[by Anonymous Coward]

Actually Firefox has a similar vulnerability, which has been unpatched for months (as a design decision - there is no way to patch it without breaking useful stuff).

This is a new report of a old vulnerability which isn't serious. The fact that it's been released "not 24 hours" after IE 7 was released is, I would think, because someone decided to release it to coincide with the launch.

Re:

[Robber Baron (112304)]

I use lynx to surf pr0n!

Re:

[bozendoka (739643)]

I agree completely. Heaven knows there weren't any fanboys on Slashdot before Firefox.

Ah, those were the days... rational discourse, on topic discussions, no spelling errors...Why, I remember one time, I said that I thought that Gentoo could be a little easier to install, and nobody modded me down. Dammit, I promised myself I wasn't going to cry!

Re:Firefox

[GuidoW (844172)]

Excuse, but where did you read that FF has that exact same vulnerability?

Also, even though FF does have issues, I believe you'll be hard pressed to find a vulnerability in FF that has been known for years and still gone unfixed. (According to heise on http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/79745 [heise-security.co.uk] this is actually an old bug that also affects IE 6)

Re:Lynx vs. links. Security? Standards? Usability?

[rk (6314)]

Links? Lynx? You're all wimps.

I posted this by hand using "telnet slashdot.org 80".

Re:Lynx vs. links. Security? Standards? Usability?

[aymanh (892834)]

You need a computer program to post? How amateurish! I'm posting this by waving a magnet next to a phone cable ;)

Re:This is news???

[smooth wombat (796938)]

Next time a bug is found in FF, I'm going to contact the media and scream bloody murder.

It's already been done [slashdot.org] and found to be a hoax [slashdot.org].

Anything else you want to complain about?

Re:This is news???

[shadowmas (697397)]

the problem isn't so much as not having bugs in FF but the fact that MS is trying to make it look like the new IE is revolutionary and secure than FF.

FYP

[tygerstripes (832644)]

I would not trust IE unless it is rewritten from scratch.

...by someone else.

Re:

[chrismcdirty (677039)]

I like how Firefox originally started as the slimmer, less resource-intensive version of Mozilla. And look where it is now.