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A fairly serious flaw in Internet Explorer which would enable a malicious Web page or e-mail to drop a cookie containing an HTML script on a victim's machine and run it in the 'Local Computer' zone rather than the Internet zone to avoid restrictions has just been patched, writes Thomas C Greene.
The script would run with the user's level of permission, and could therefore do considerable damage depending on its design. The problem behind it is essentially an oversight by Microsoft programmers, who failed to realise that once a cookie is stored locally, it is no longer restricted to the Internet zone, where, presumably, scripts and plugins should operate safely.
Also patched is an item more irritating than dangerous, in which an object tag in a Web page or an e-mail is improperly executed outside the Internet zone and calls an executable on the local machine.
In this case the file name and path must be known, so only programs in default locations can reasonably be activated. Microsoft says that parameters can not be passed to the executable, so there is nothing terribly dangerous here.
The patches for IE 6; 5.5 SP-2; 5.5 SP-1; and 5.01 SP-2 for Win-2K and NT are at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/Q319182/default.asp.
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