Software Engineering Institute

Symantec Norton Internet Security is a software package for Windows that includes antivirus, firewall, intrusion detection, privacy protection, spam filtering, and content filtering functionality. Norton Internet Security 2004 includes an ActiveX control called ISAlertDataCOM, which is provided by the file ISLAlert.dll. This ActiveX control contains stack buffer overflows in the Get() and Set() methods.

Note that the vulnerable control comes with both the Norton Internet Security 2004 and Norton Personal Firewall 2004 software packages.

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 the web browser to crash.

Apply an update
Symantec has released fixes for this problem that are available through the LiveUpdate functionality of the products. Symantec advisory SYM07-007 provides details on obtaining updates through LiveUpdate or other channels. If you cannot install the update, please use the following workarounds

Disable the ISAlertDataCOM ActiveX control in Internet Explorer

The vulnerable ActiveX control can be disabled in Internet Explorer by setting the kill bit for the following CLSID:

{BE39AEFD-5704-4bb5-B1DF-B7992454AB7E}
More information about how to set the kill bit is available in Microsoft Support Document 240797. Alternatively, the following text can be saved as a .REG file and imported to set the kill bit for this control:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{BE39AEFD-5704-4bb5-B1DF-B7992454AB7E}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400
Please note that setting the kill bit may remove some of the Internet Explorer functionality provided by the Symantec software.

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.