Yahoo has patched a buffer overflow vulnerability in its instant-messaging tool that would have enabled attackers to potentially execute code on a compromised machine.
The flaw exists in an ActiveX control that is part of the Yahoo Messenger audio conference control. If exploited, a buffer overflow could cause a user to be involuntarily logged out of a chat or instant messaging session, the crash of an application such as Internet Explorer or the execution of code.
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According to the company, an attacker would have to trick a user into viewing malicious HTML code in order for the attack to be successful.
Andrew Storms, director of security operations for San Francisco-based nCircle, said addressing the vulnerability could pose a problem in large corporate environments where Yahoo Messenger is widely used.
“Yahoo IM is heavily used in the corporate environment even if security policy doesnt officially permit it,” he said. “[This vulnerability] leaves administrators with the choices to upgrade or set the kill-bit on the affected ActiveX control. Unfortunately, many corporations are unable to centrally manage upgrades [to] Windows Messenger, making this fix extremely time-intensive for IT teams. Many companies will be performing ad-hoc mitigation to get this cleaned up.”
Yahoo advises anyone who has installed Yahoo Messenger before March 13 to install the update.
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