Software Engineering Institute

The Sky Software FileView object is an ActiveX control that is provided with several applications, such as WinZip. This ActiveX control contains a buffer overflow vulnerability in the handling of the filepattern property. Exploit code for this vulnerability is publicly available.

Note that this vulnerability is not the same as VU#512804 (CVE-2006-5198), which was coordinated by TippingPoint.

By convincing a user to view a specially crafted HTML document (e.g., a web page or an HTML email message or attachment), an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. The attacker could also cause Internet Explorer (or the program using the WebBrowser control) to crash.

Apply an update

WinZip 10 users should update to Winzip 10 build 7245. This update provides a version of the FileView control that is not marked "safe for scripting" or "safe for initialization," which means that a web page cannot trigger the buffer overflow. Versions of WinZip prior to 10 do not appear to contain the vulnerable ActiveX control.

Sky Software FileView ActiveX control users should update to version 8.0 of the control. This version appears to fix the buffer overflow vulnerability.

Disable ActiveX

Disabling ActiveX controls in the Internet Zone (or any zone used by an attacker) appears to prevent exploitation of this and other ActiveX vulnerabilities. Instructions for disabling ActiveX in the Internet Zone can be found in the "Securing Your Web Browser" document. 

Disable the FileView object in Internet Explorer

The Sky Software FileView ActiveX controls can be disabled in Internet Explorer by setting the kill bit for the following CLSIDs. Note that this list is not a complete list of the vulnerable controls. Other versions of the FileView ActiveX control may use different CLSIDs.

{0A7A7240-D038-DB9F-B3B1-7FEFFE5F9ED6}
{247D857F-1034-4AA6-BB1A-347D1A3340C8}
{551E5AC9-BDBD-48EC-8AE2-ECAF90C7A214}
{A09AE68F-B14D-43ED-B713-BA413F034904}
More information about how to set the kill bit is available in Microsoft Support Document 240797.