HouseCall throws a sickie

ActiveX control gives online scanner man flu

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Enterprise Security, 22nd December 2008 14:40 GMT

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Users of Trend Micro's HouseCall antivirus scanner need to upgrade following the discovery of a potentially serious security bug.

Attentive readers will have have already guessed the vulnerability involves a problem with an ActiveX control, specifically versions 6.51.0.1028 and 6.6.0.1278 of the HouseCall ActiveX Control. Users need to upgrade to version 6.6.0.1285.

Successful exploitation of the flaw creates a mechanism for hackers to inject hostile code onto vulnerable systems, security notification firm Secunia - which discovered the bug and published an advisory on Sunday - explains:

"The vulnerability is caused by a use-after-free error in the HouseCallActiveX control (Housecall_ActiveX.dll). This can be exploited to dereference previously freed memory by tricking the user into opening a web page containing a specially crafted "notifyOnLoadNative()"callback function." ®

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