Despite AOL's Claim, AIM Worm Hole Still Wide Open

Clown of the month writes "There's a nasty worm hole in America Online's standalone AIM (instant messaging) software that won't be patched until the middle of October. This vulnerability, first reported to AOL by researchers at Core Security more than a month ago, is caused by the way AIM supports the rendering of HTML content via an embedded Internet Explorer server control. AOL coordinated with Core on the release of an advisory, on the understanding that the flaw was patched in the latest beta version. As security researcher Aviv Raff discovered, the underlying vulnerability was never fixed. In the demonstration, Raff simply sent an IM to trigger the launch of the calculator application. The attack scenario works without the target clicking on a link and only requires that the AIM user is logged on and accepting incoming messages."

Comments

Re:just use pidgin!

[Sarten-X]

Indeed. I've been using pidgin/GAIM for 3 years, and recommend it to everyone whose computer I've had to remove viruses from. There's really little reason to use AOL or MSN's client.

Re:just use pidgin!

[Cal Paterson]

Here's a perfect example of where an open-source solution beats the pants off a commercial one.

This statement, while true, doesn't say a lot. Pidgin does have a lot of shortcomings (though it's all I use).