MS06-009 is not categorized as virus, worm, Trojan or backdoor. It is an important vulnerability in the Korean Input Method Editor on Windows 2003/XP computers and several versions of Office 2003, which allows to perform a local privilege escalation attack in the vulnerable computer. The affected versions are: - Windows XP/2003: the Korean language versions or versions where the Korean language IME is enabled.
- Office 2003 Proofing tools: versions in any language.
- Office 2003 (others): the Korean language versions or versions where the Korean language IME is enabled.
For more information about the Office 2003 vulnerable versions, refer to Microsoft's official website.
An Input Method Editor (IME) consists of an engine that converts keystrokes into phonetic and ideographic characters and a dictionary of commonly-used ideographic words. As the user enters keystrokes via the keyboard, the IME identifies the keystrokes and converts them into characters. If exploited successfully, MS06-009 allows hackers to gain unauthorized privileges on a computer or network. An example of privilege elevation would be an unprivileged user who could manage to be added to the Administrator's group. In such case, the hacker could take complete control of the system: create, modify or delete files, install programs, create new user accounts, etc. This vulnerability can be exploited locally or remotely by an attacking user who could access the affected computer's logon screen. Attacks can be launched across the Internet, but a firewall could be used in order to prevent those attacks. If you have a Windows 2003/XP computer or certain versions of Office 2003, it is recommendable to download and apply the security patch for this vulnerability. Click here to access the web page for downloading the patch. |