Monday, May 17, 2004

Technical final step to 'silent delivery and installation of an 
executable on the target computer, no client input other than 
reading an email' this can be achieved with the highly 
touted 'secure-by-default'  Outlook 2003 mail client from the 
craftsman known as 'Microsoft'.

Default settings of the 'gadget' are: restricted zone which 
means no active x controls, no scripting, no file downloads etc.

This can all very easily be bypassed by simply embedding in a 
rich text message our OLE object, one Windows Media Player. We 
then point our source url to our media file which includes or 
now run-of -the mill 0s url flip and simply by previewing or 
opening the email message invoke our device known as Internet 
Explorer to proxy our manipulation of the recipient's machine.

In typical fashion despite the settings in the Windows Media 
Player being set to 'disallow' scripting in media files, despite 
Outlook 2003's 'highly' secure default setting of view html 
content in the so-called 'restricted zone'; it all still works !

[screen shot: http://www.malware.com/rockitman.png 46KB]

This now all automates our process and coupling it with our 
previous first step finding:

[http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/10307]

all we need to do next is our second step and embed the entire 
package including the media file into the mail message and send 
it along its merry way.

The whole Outlook 2003 'gadget' is broken.

Working Example:

Simply view the mail message:

http://www.malware.com/rockIT.zip

Notes:

1. Miserable selection of full screen = true can allow us to run 
our 'video' in WMP full screen mode. How about that: forget 
about html spam messages, now we have full screen video 
advertisements on opening the mail message.
2. Tested on XP, 2K3 POP mail client settings Outlook 2003, 
Exchange Server settings unknown at this time
3. Subject to initial WMP settings a notification of connection 
settings can pop up, however generally dismissed at first 
running of WMP along with neither yes or no selection having an 
effect [as usual].
4. Firewalls should flag Outlook itself trying to escape out on 
port 80. Nevertheless if all embedded no need for remote hosting.
5. Disable HTML settings or get another mail client [better of 
the two as below]
6. Lots more where this came from


End Call

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