Microsoft Releases Unscheduled IE Security Patch

Microsoft released an unscheduled security patch on Friday designed to fix a trio of serious security problems affecting users of its ubiquitous Internet Explorer Web browser. All three of the security vulnerabilities might be exploited to take control of vulnerable systems, so patching is a necessity.

The flaws involve: an integer overflow involving the way IE processes bitmap files, a memory processing vulnerability in the processing of GIF files and a scripting vulnerability that was the basis of June’s Download.Ject (Scob) attack. All three of these vulnerabilities have been reported to be relatively straightforward to exploit. “Even vigilant users visiting a malicious website, viewing a malformed image, or reading an HTML-rendered email message may be affected,” according to a bulletin from security clearing house US-CERT. No surprise, then, that Redmond gives all three vulnerabilities its dreaded “critical” security classification.

IE versions 5.01, 5.5. and 6 on multiple Windows platforms are affected so it promises to be a busy day for sysadmins everywhere. Early versions of Microsoft’s cumulative patch didn’t apply the final release code for XP customers running the latest version of Windows Update. After correcting this, Microsoft reissued its advisory on Sunday. The latest version of the bulletin is here.

Long-awaited IE patch (finally) arrives @ The Register