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Malware to Exploit Bugs in Windows Media Player

February 18, 2006

Hackers have released an attack code that can exploit two bugs in the Microsoft Windows Media Player. The malware can easily take control of the Windows PCs, which don't have the latest security patches introduced by Microsoft.

Hackers have come out with a software that has the attack code to take over the Microsoft's MS06-05 and MS06-06 bugs in the Windows Media Player that was released on Tuesday. The MS06-05 has a loophole in the processes bitmap files of the Player, while the flaw of MS06-06 lies in the Media Player plug-in for non-Microsoft browsers.

Microsoft had earlier come out with a statement announcing the MS06-05 as critical, but the French Security Incident Response Team Web site said that MS06-06 could be exploited to a higher level. Craig Schmugar, virus research manager with McAfee Inc.'s Avert Labs stated, "From a vulnerability side, MS06-005 is a concern, but from what we've seen so far, the MS06-006 exploits are further along."

Though there were lots of false alarms in the past few days on the use of the attack code, none of the code has been used by attackers so far. But many security researchers agree that activities have been going on among the hackers to exploit the bugs in the Windows Media Player.

Source: IDG news service