Patch Available for 'OCX Attachment' Vulnerability

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Originally posted: September 26, 2000

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Summary
Issue
Affected Software Versions
Patch Availability
More Information
Obtaining Support on this Issue
Revisions

Summary

Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a security vulnerability that could cause certain email applications to fail, requiring the user to restart the e-mail client to resume normal operation.

Issue

OCX controls are containers that can hold multiple ActiveX controls. A particular OCX control, associated with Windows Media Player, could be used in a denial of service attack against RTF-enabled e-mail clients such as Microsoft® Outlook and Outlook Express. If the affected control were programmatically embedded into an RTF mail and then sent to another user, the user's mail client would fail when he closed the mail.

The vulnerability would not cause any lasting effects. The user could resume normal operation by restarting the mail client and deleting the affected mail. Although the affected OCX control is associated with Windows Media Player, it poses no threat to it—the vulnerability could only be used to attack e-mail clients.

Affected Software Versions

  • Media Player OCX as part of Microsoft Windows Media Player 7, and only when installed on systems running Outlook or Outlook Express.

Note: The vulnerability only occurs if both Windows Media Player 7 and an affected e-mail client (Outlook or Outlook Express) are installed on the same machine. Machines that only fulfill one of these conditions are not affected.

Patch Availability

Click here to copy WMSU28412.EXE to your computer

More Information

Please see the following references for more information related to this issue.

Obtaining Support on this Issue

This is a fully supported patch. Information on contacting Microsoft Product Support Services is available at https://support.microsoft.com/support/contact/default.asp.

Revisions

  • September 26, 2000: Bulletin Created.

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