Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets nuclear weapons researchers

[JMH]

Attackers exploited a previously unknown and currently unpatched security bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to surreptitiously install malware on the computers of federal government workers involved in nuclear weapons research, researchers said Friday.

The attack code appears to have exploited a zero-day vulnerability in IE version 8 when running on Windows XP, researchers from security firm Invincea said in a blog post. The researchers have received reports that IE running on Windows 7 is susceptible to the same exploit but have not been able to independently confirm that. Versions 6 and 7 of the Microsoft browser don't appear to be vulnerable. The blog post didn't mention the status of IE 9 or 10.

Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets nuclear weapons researchers | Ars Technica

 

[cluberti]

The exploit should be protected on Vista+ as long as the user hasn't disabled UAC, and isn't logged on as admin - the reg keys needed to keep it going can't be written to by IE in that state, nor can it write out the payload (those are all medium or high IL locations, and IE should be low IL). Of course, anyone who's disabled Windows security is at risk if IE8 and Vista or Win7 too, likely.