Blog: IE7

Sans.org published a notice today that there is a 0-day exploit for Internet Explorer in the wild.  The updates released by Microsoft yesterday did not fix this vulnerability.  The specific exploit checks to be sure it is running in IE7 on XP or 2003 before it does anything, but whether other versions are exploitable is not yet known.

The article says "At this point in time it does not appear to be wildly used, but as the code is publicly available we can expect that this will happen very soon."

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5458

I ran across a cool add-on to IE 7 called IE7Pro.  I use a lot of extensions to Firefox, but this add-on to IE has a lot of helpful features rolled into one install.  Here is a list of some of its features:

• Webpage capturer
• Ad blocker
• Greasemonkey 
• Advanced Tab Browsing Management
  • Double click to close tab
  • Crash recovery
  • Select the external program to view page source
  • Tab history manager
  • Refresh tab interval
• Inline search
• Spell checking of text you enter in forms
• Proxy switcher
• Super Drag Drop

[more]The inline search adds a search bar like found in Firefox that finds as you type.  You use the F3 and Enter key to cycle to the next result and you can highlight all the results on the page see them all at once.  If you'd rather search the web instead of the current page, you have the option to highlight the word or phrase, right-click it, and choose the Search With menu item.  The Search With function will display the search results for the term in a new tab using Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, or another search engine of your choice.

The Refresh Current Tab feature is a cool way to ensure your always looking at current information on website that don't automatically refresh on their own.  This is great for situations where you want to keep a news site or a web based monitoring utility up all day long and view the latest information without having to refresh the page everytime you look at it.

My favorite feature is the webpage capturer.  This feature enables you to easily save a page to an image file.  No more Ctrl+Print Screen and pasting into MS Paint or Word.  Now you can save screenshots directly from the browser into a JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, or TIFF.  This is a real time saver.

Click here to visit the IE7Pro website.

On February 12, Microsoft plans to make an updated Internet Explorer 7 installation package available via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). The installation will be released as an Update Rollup package. Customers that require IE6 and have WSUS configured to auto-approve critical updates will need to disable the auto-approval feature before February 12 to ensure the rollup package is not released to clients.

Once the Update Rollup package for IE7 has synchronized with the WSUS server, the auto-approval feature can be turned back on and installation of the IE7 update can be managed manually. [more]

Please note that if you have previously deployed the Blocker Toolkit to restrict automatic installation if IE7, Microsoft has not yet announced if this will continue to prevent the installation of the new IE7 update.

For more information about the Blocker Toolkit, refer to the following link:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65788

If you need help planning for and testing Internet Explorer 7, please contact us.

For more information regarding automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7, please visit:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/updatemanagement/bb226738.aspx

In a bulletin released October 22, 2007, Adobe announced a critical vulnerability in its Acrobat and Reader programs. This vulnerability could allow a successful attacker to take control of the affected system. In order for the attacker to compromise the system, they must get you to open a malicious file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

This vulnerability affects users running Windows XP or Windows 2003 with Internet Explorer 7 installed. Vista users are not affected. Adobe versions 8.1 and earlier are susceptible to this vulnerability. Adobe categorizes this as a critical issue and recommends that affected users update their product installations.  [more]

For Adobe versions 8.1, Adobe strongly recommends that you upgrade to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1. Users can utilize the product’s automatic update feature or manually activate the update by choosing Help > Check for Updates Now from the program's menu. You can also find update files here:
•  Adobe Acrobat: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows

•  Adobe Reader: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows

For Adobe versions 7.09 or earlier, Adobe will release an update in the near future, so you should continue to check the Adobe support site for available updates.

For more information about this vulnerability, please refer to the following article on Adobe's website:
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb07-18.html

For help applying this critical security update to your Adobe applications, please contact us.

Microsoft plans to deliver their latest version of Internet Explorer (version 7) as a high-priority security update via Automatic Updates (AU) and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites. The IE update will be available shortly after its final version release (expected within the next few weeks).

Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is currently available from Microsoft's website (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx). IT Administrators should begin installing and testing this new version of IE for application compatibility.

Microsoft is providing a Blocker Toolkit for enterprise customers who want to block automatic delivery of IE7. The Blocker Toolkit can be downloaded from Microsoft's Download Center at:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65788