TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

Microsoft Internet Explorer selectAll Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI-12-065: April 18th, 2012

CVSS Score

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 12231. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details


This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Microsoft Internet Explorer. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious page.

The specific issue is due to the way Internet Explorer handles multiple invocations of the selectAll function. When certain objects are created, the process can be made to descend into a function that will delete an object and create a new one, without replacing references that the parent caller will later utilize. This can lead to a use after free scenario which can be leveraged to execute code under the context of the user running the browser.

Vendor Response

Microsoft has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:

Disclosure Timeline

    2012-01-12 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2012-04-18 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Anonymous