Sunday, May 09, 2004

Outlook 2003 the premier mail client from the company
called 'Microsoft' certainly appears to have a lot of security
features built into it. Curosry examination shows excellent
thought into 'spam' containment, 'security' consideration and
many other little 'things'.

However there is a fundamental flaw with this particular device.
That is, it copies our arbitrary file with given name into a
known and easily reachable location:

<img src="malware.htm" style="display:none">

when embedded into the body of a mail message and when the
recipient replies, will copy itself into temp folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Temp.htm

This location can be quite easily reached without having to know
the user name [courtesy of jelmer]:

<a href="shell:user profile\\local
settings\\temp\\malware.htm">http://office.microsoft.com/</a>

The scenario is 'painstakingly' trivial. Send your co-hort at
the office an email that requires a reply. Embed in it, an html
file out of sight. Either send them a second message with any
number of 'spoofed' url schemes pointing to the file in the
temp, or, direct them to a web site which will reach in into the
temp folder via the same url and install and run our malicious
software.

Very Silly Design Error.

End Call

--
http://www.malware.com

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