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Two New Bugs Found on Windows Meta File

January 9, 2006

It has been hardly a few days when Microsoft Corp. fixed up a critical vulnerability in the windows operating system. A hacker has now published details of two new flaws that affect the same part of the operating system.

All three flaws concern the way Windows renders images in the Windows Metafile (WMF) format used by some CAD (computer-aided design) applications, but these latest flaws are far less serious than the vulnerability that Microsoft patched last week, according to security experts. That vulnerability was serious enough to cause Microsoft to take the unusual step of releasing an early patch to the problem, ahead of its monthly security software update.

While the patched flaw was being exploited by attackers to take control of Windows machines, the latest vulnerabilities appear to pose the risk of simply crashing the WMF-viewing software, typically Internet Explorer. However, users would first need to trick a victim into viewing a specially crafted WMF image in order for this to happen, security experts say.

Source: TechWeb News