Microsoft Security Advisory 979352 Released

Microsoft determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks. According to Threat Level at Wired.com, Adobe was impacted and it appears that at least 34 companies were breached.

Following are the mitigating factors in Microsoft Security Advisory 979352:

• Protected Mode in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista and later Windows operating systems limits the impact of the vulnerability.
  
  
• In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these Web sites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker’s Web site.
  
  
• An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less affected than users who operate with administrative user rights.
  
  
• By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. This mode sets the security level for the Internet zone to High. This is a mitigating factor for Web sites that you have not added to the Internet Explorer Trusted sites zone.
  
  
• By default, all supported versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows Mail open HTML e-mail messages in the Restricted sites zone. The Restricted sites zone helps mitigate attacks that could try to exploit this vulnerability by preventing Active Scripting and ActiveX controls from being used when reading HTML e-mail messages. However, if a user clicks a link in an e-mail message, the user could still be vulnerable to exploitation of this vulnerability through the Web-based attack scenario.

References:

• MSRC Blog: The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) : Security Advisory 979352 Released
• TechNet: Security Advisory 979352 Released
• Wired.com: Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online

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