Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2004-0549: Microsoft Internet Explorer: Remote code execution

CVE-2004-0549 has a CVSS v2 base score of 10.0 (the maximum on that scale) and affects Microsoft Internet Explorer. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

The WebBrowser ActiveX control, or the Internet Explorer HTML rendering engine (MSHTML), as used in Internet Explorer 6, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code in the Local Security context by using the showModalDialog method and modifying the location to execute code such as Javascript, as demonstrated using (1) delayed HTTP redirect operations, and an HTTP response with a Location: header containing a "URL:" prepended to a "ms-its" protocol URI, or (2) modifying the location attribute of the window, as exploited by the Download.ject (aka Scob aka Toofer) using the ADODB.Stream object.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v2.0 10.0: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

  • Access vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network.
  • Access complexity: Low. No special conditions are required.
  • Authentication: None. No authentication is needed.
  • Confidentiality impact: Complete. Total information disclosure.
  • Integrity impact: Complete. Total loss of integrity.
  • Availability impact: Complete. Total shutdown of the component.

Affected products

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer: all versions listed by NVD; 5.01; 5.5; 6.0

References