When zero-day vulnerabilities are discovered in programs, the first to discover and promote them are often Internet hackers out to steal credit cards and make advertising money by installing spyware on unwitting users's systems.
Yesterday former hacker-turned-musician Bryce Case Jr, known by his stage name YTCracker, tweeted about a new zero day exploit threatening all users of IE8, tweeting "internet explorer 6-8 0day making the rounds force them toolbar installs and keyloggers on exgf while you still can..." promoting the hack among the black hat hacking community.
The seriousness of the exploit was highlighted when YTCracker noted on Twitter that IE8 still has almost a ~25% market share.
Security experts advise switching to other browsers until Microsoft issues a patch. Browsers easy to move to include Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox. Microsoft has conveyed that IE9 and IE10 are not affected.
The attacks can be made through Adobe Flash and/or obfuscated Javascript and Flash ActionScript-based heap spray. Microsoft recommends blocking the attacks by executing the following:
"Disabling Javascript will prevent the vulnerability from being triggered initially. Disabling Flash will prevent the ActionScipt-based heap spray from preparing memory such that the freed object contains exploit code. Disabling the ms-help protocol handler AND ensuring that Java6 is not allowed to run will block the ASLR bypass and the associated ROP chain."
You can also install EMET and set it to protect Internet Explorer. Furthermore, Microsoft shared that they are engaged in setting up a appcompat shim-based Fix It protection tool. The shim replaces a je instruction with a jmp, which stops the vulnerability for code execution. You can deploy the shim here: http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/
As of November 2012, common statistics suggest Internet Explorer has a 15.1% browser market share, Firefox has a 31.2% market share and Chrome stands at a 46.3% market share. IE's market share is down from 20.2% in December of 2011 and Firefox is down from 37.7% in December of 2011, while Chrome has gone up from 36.4% of the same time frame.
Security experts advise switching to other browsers until Microsoft issues a patch. Browsers easy to move to include Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox. Microsoft has conveyed that IE9 and IE10 are not affected.
The attacks can be made through Adobe Flash and/or obfuscated Javascript and Flash ActionScript-based heap spray. Microsoft recommends blocking the attacks by executing the following:
"Disabling Javascript will prevent the vulnerability from being triggered initially. Disabling Flash will prevent the ActionScipt-based heap spray from preparing memory such that the freed object contains exploit code. Disabling the ms-help protocol handler AND ensuring that Java6 is not allowed to run will block the ASLR bypass and the associated ROP chain."
You can also install EMET and set it to protect Internet Explorer. Furthermore, Microsoft shared that they are engaged in setting up a appcompat shim-based Fix It protection tool. The shim replaces a je instruction with a jmp, which stops the vulnerability for code execution. You can deploy the shim here: http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/
As of November 2012, common statistics suggest Internet Explorer has a 15.1% browser market share, Firefox has a 31.2% market share and Chrome stands at a 46.3% market share. IE's market share is down from 20.2% in December of 2011 and Firefox is down from 37.7% in December of 2011, while Chrome has gone up from 36.4% of the same time frame.
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