A serious new remotely exploitable vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Windows' image processing code.
UNTIL THIS IS REPAIRED BY MICROSOFT, ANY ATTEMPT TO DISPLAY A MALICIOUS IMAGE IN WINDOWS COULD INSTALL MALICIOUS SOFTWARE INTO THE COMPUTER.
All versions of Windows from Windows 98 through ME, NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 are known to be vulnerable, and a large and rapidly growing number of malicious exploits (57 at last count) are already circulating in the wild. They are being actively used to install malware and Trojans into user's machines. Viruses and worms are expected to appear shortly.
Proof of Concept:
Open
http://www.fxfisherman.com/downloads/anything.wmf and see for yourself. A calculator program is open and then your computer is crashed. Note: Save all files before preceeding with this expiment. I will not be responsible for any damages.
Workaround
Logon as a user with full administrative rights.
Click the Windows "Start" button and select "Run..."
Enter the following string into the "Open" field:
regsvr32 -u shimgvw.dll
(You can copy/paste from this page using Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V)
Click "OK" to unregister the vulnerable DLL.
If all goes well, you will receive a confirmation prompt, and your system is now safe. No need to reboot, but you might want to just to be sure that any possible currently loaded instance is flushed out.
To eventually re-enable the "SHIMGVW.DLL" component:
Logon as a user with full administrative rights.
Click the Windows "Start" button and select "Run..."
Enter the following string into the "Open" field:
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
Additional reading and information:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archi....html#00000754
http://secunia.com/advisories/18255/
http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/v_137760.htm
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/16074/info
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005...y-patched.html
http://redxii.blogspot.com/2005/12/v...rendering.html
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec...ry/912840.mspx