XP DoS attack vulnerability is no big deal

[Alpine]

Unless it happens to you


VOLES ARE attempting to get to the bottom of a report from insecurity firm Secunia that a flaw in Windows XP could cause applications to crash and burn


"Malicious people" - malicians, we'll call them - could use the vulnerability to launch denial of service attacks, Secunia warns.

Unsuspecting users may be hoodwinked into clicking on overly-long links which in turn may cause Internet Explorer and other bits and bobs to go Pete Tong.

Fully patched-up versions of Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft Windows 2003 Server aren't patched up enough to avert the problem, it seems.

Secunia says execution of arbitrary code "may be possible, but [this] has currently not been proven as it is prevented by the DEP (Data Execution Prevention) mechanism".

The firm's little work-around is to disable the "mhtml:" URI handler. It set the threat level at two out of five on its 'how scary is this' rating system.

The INQuirer