IE Design Flaw Lets Hacker Crack Google Desktop

Eweek reported An unpatched design flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser could give malicious hackers an easy way to use the Google Desktop application to covertly hijack user information. Matan Gillon, a hacker from Israel, discovered the vulnerability in the cross-domain protections in Internet Explorer and published a proof-of-concept exploit to show how Google Desktop can be cracked. "The proof of concept works on a fully patched IE browser (default security and privacy settings) with Google Desktop v2 installed," Gillon said in a note sent to Ziff Davis Internet News. He also published a detailed explanation of the vulnerability and warned that an attacker simply needs to lure a target to visit a malicious Web page. "Much like classic XSS (cross site scripting) holes, this design flaw in IE allows an attacker to retrieve private user data or execute operations on the [user's] behalf on remote domains," Gillon explained. A spokeswoman for Microsoft acknowledged the flaw in a statement and said the company was unaware of active attacks against IE users.

Another reason to use Firefox. Microsoft is aware of the problem, but just is not aware of any active attacks being launched. Perhaps they should fix the problem BEFORE the attacks are launched.