Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update to address a remote code execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer 9, 10 and 11.
The critical zero-day “Scripting Engine Memory Corruption” vulnerability (CVE-2018-8653) is being actively exploited on Windows systems by hackers.
“A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer. The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,” Microsoft noted in the advisory.
The security update fixes the vulnerability by modifying how the scripting engine handles objects in memory.