It is not even a day since the launch of Internet Explorer 7, security researchers are already poking holes in the new browser.
Danish security company Secunia reported today that IE7 contains an information disclosure vulnerability, the same one it reported in IE6 in April. The vulnerability affects the final version of IE7 running on Windows XP with Service Pack 2.
If a surfer uses IE7 to visit a maliciously crafted Web site, that site could exploit the security flaw to read information from a separate, secure site to which the surfer is logged in. That could enable an attacker to read banking details, or messages from a Web-mail account, said Thomas Kristensen, Secunia’s chief technology officer.
“A phishing attack would be a good place to exploit this,” he said. One of the security features Microsoft touts for the new browser is the protection it offers users from phishing attacks.
Secunia rates the security flaw as “less critical,” its second-lowest rating, and suggests disabling active scripting support to protect the computer. The flaw could result in the exposure of sensitive information and can be exploited by a remote system, Secunia said in a security advisory posted on its Web site..
Problem does not seems to be from IE7. Instead, the problem lies in a component of Microsoft’s Outlook Express e-mail client, which can be triggered by the browser according to Christopher Budd from Microsoft Security Response Center Blog!
The flaw could be used in phishing attacks to read sensitive information from the IE browser, Secunia said. The Danish security firm first reported the problem with the IE 6 browser in April and found that it could be reproduced on IE 7 as well