Cumulative Patch for Outlook Express New

Microsoft has released a cumulative patch for Outlook Express 5.5 and 6.0 which resolves a new critical MHTML security flaw and previous security vulnerabilities.

Issue

MHTML stands for MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML. MHTML is an Internet standard that defines the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) structure used to send HTML content in e-mail message bodies. The MHTML URL Handler in Windows is part of Outlook Express and provides a URL type that can be used on the local machine. This URL type (MHTML://) allows MHTML documents to be launched from a command line, from Start/Run, using Windows Explorer or from within Internet Explorer.

A vulnerability exists in the MHTML URL Handler that allows any file that can be rendered as text to be opened and rendered as part of a page in Internet Explorer. As a result, it would be possible to construct a URL that referred to a text file that was stored on the local computer and have that file render as HTML. If the text file contained script, that script would execute when the file was accessed. Since the file would reside on the local computer, it would be rendered in the Local Computer Security Zone. Files that are opened within the Local Computer Zone are subject to fewer restrictions than files opened in other security zones.

Using this method, an attacker could attempt to construct a URL and either host it on a website or send it via email. In the web based scenario, where a user then clicked on a URL hosted on a website, an attacker could have the ability to read or launch files already present on the local machine. In the case of an e-mail borne attack, if the user was using Outlook Express 6.0 or Outlook 2002 in their default configurations, or Outlook 98 or 2000 in conjunction with the Outlook Email Security Update, then an attack could not be automated and the user would still need to click on a URL sent in the e-mail. However if the user was not using Outlook Express 6.0 or Outlook 2002 in their default configurations, or Outlook 98 or 2000 in conjunction with the Outlook Email Security Update, the attacker could cause an attack to trigger automatically without the user having to click on a URL contained in an e-mail. In both the web based and e-mail based cases, any limitations on the user’s privileges would also restrict the capabilities of the attacker’s script.

Affected Products

• Microsoft Outlook Express 5.5
• Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0

Download

Patch: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/330994/default.asp

Further Details

Source: Microsoft Corporation

Reference: Microsoft Corporation

Updated: April 23, 2003

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