search menu icon-carat-right cmu-wordmark
Carnegie Mellon University

Software Engineering Institute

CERT Coordination Center

Microsoft XML Core Services XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret certain HTTP operations

Vulnerability Note VU#547212

Original Release Date: 2006-10-11 | Last Revised: 2006-10-31

Overview

The Microsoft XML Core Services XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret certain HTTP operations. An attacker who exploits this vulnerability may be able to read cookies or view other sensitive data from a vulnerable system.

Description

Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) allow developers who use JScript, Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), and Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 to create XML-based applications. MSXML includes the XMLHTTP ActiveX control, which allows web pages to transmit or receive XML data via HTTP operations.

The XMLHTTP ActiveX control fails to properly interpret HTTP server-side redirects.

Note that an attacker would only need to convince a user to view a malicious webpage to exploit this vulnerability.

Impact

Per Microsoft, An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could read cookies or other data from another security zone or domain in Internet Explorer.

Solution

Update
Microsoft has released an update to address this issue. See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-061 for more details.


Disable ActiveX

Disabling ActiveX controls in the Internet Zone (or any zone used by an attacker) will remove an attack vector for this vulnerability. Instructions for disabling ActiveX in the Internet Zone can be found in the Securing Your Web Browser document.

Vendor Information

547212
 
Expand all

Microsoft Corporation Affected

Updated:  October 10, 2006

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

Please see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-061.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us email.


CVSS Metrics

Group Score Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Microsoft for supplying information about this vulnerability.

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2006-4685
Severity Metric: 0.39
Date Public: 2006-10-10
Date First Published: 2006-10-11
Date Last Updated: 2006-10-31 20:34 UTC
Document Revision: 24

Sponsored by CISA.

Download PGP Key

Read CERT/CC Blog

Learn about Vulnerability Analysis