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Microsoft Posts 2 Security Bulletins

Microsoft posted a "critical" cumulative patch fixing two new vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer. Microsoft also put out a separate patch for an "important" security problem in Windows XP.

The IE flaws involve incomplete security checking in IE's cross-domain security model that is designed to keep windows of different domains from sharing information. The vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute commands on a user's system, according to Microsoft security bulletin (MS03-004) issued Wednesday night.

One of the flaws affects IE versions 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0. The other affects versions 5.5 and 6.0 only.

An attacker wanting to exploit the flaw would have to host a malicious Web site and lure users to it.

The other bulletin issued Wednesday night, (MS03-005), could result in local elevation of privileges for Windows XP users with an ability to interactively log on to a machine.

Microsoft says the vulnerability, which affects both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system, is only of concern for machines that are shared among users.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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