Zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer

Memory corruption
CVE-2010-3971

The vulnerability appears to be connected to the group of Chinese hackers responsible for unleashing a pair of Java zero-day exploits in 2012. After examining of the geographical location of the targets for CVE-2010-3971, these attack attempts bear a close resemblance to those targeting CVE-2010-3962, another Internet Explorer issue that was dubbed as the Weekend Warrior.

Known malware:

Virus HTML:CVE-2010-3971-A

Vulnerability details

Advisory: SB2010122201 - Remote code execution in Microsoft Internet Explorer

Vulnerable component: Microsoft Internet Explorer

CVE-ID: CVE-2010-3971

CVSSv3 score: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

CWE-ID: CWE-119 - Memory corruption

Description:

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.

The vulnerability exists due to boundary error when parsing CSS styles. A remote attacker can create a specially crafted web page containing Cascading Style Sheet that refers to itself recursively, cause memory corruption and execute arbitrary code on the target system with privileges of the current user.

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may allow an attacker to compromise vulnerable system.

Note: this vulnerability is being actively exploited.

Public Exploits:

- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 - CSS Parser Denial of Service [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 - CSS Parser Exploit [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Internet Explorer - CSS Recursive Import Use-After-Free (MS11-003) (Metasploit) [Exploit-DB]

External links:

https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/2488013
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms11-003
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/srd/2011/01/07/assessing-the-risk-of-public-issues-currently-bei...
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2010/12/22/microsoft-releases-security-advisory-2488013/
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2011/02/08/cve-2010-3971-not-quite-the-weekend-warrior/
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/10/in-a-zero-day-world-its-active-attacks-that-matter/#more-16949
 

About zero-day vulnerabilities

Zero-day vulnerability is an undisclosed vulnerability in software that hackers can exploit to compromise computer programs, gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, penetrate networks, etc. We consider vulnerability a zero-day when there is no solution provided from software vendor and the vulnerability is being actively exploited by malicious actors.

Zero-day candidate is a potential zero-day vulnerability in software which might have been used in targeted attacks, however there is no evidence to support this suggestion.