The Haus

Thursday, July 8, 2004

Mozilla Windows Exploit -- 9:05 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Both eWeek and Newsforge have reports of a bug in Mozilla and its Firefox and Thunderbird derivatives that would allow specific urls to run arbitrary code in Windows XP or 2000. This doesn't affect the Mac, Linux, or Solaris ports. There are patches and full new versions available for download on Mozilla.org. The irony is that the problem is not Mozilla's per se, but how Windows deals with the shell: command. Mozilla just passes it to the OS to handle which could be, well, destructive. All the patch does is disable the shell: command. The real bug behind this was supposed to be fixed in XP's SP1, but wasn't. Nevertheless, if you use any of Mozilla's products in WinXP/2K, get patching. Thanks Slashdot.

The Master comments: I patched my Firefox installation, and I think this new version made some dramatic speed improvements, too. I've been very impressed by the work on Firefox so far. I hope this continues.

News for 07/08/2004

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