Re: [Full-disclosure] Security issue in Microsoft Outlook

From: Raoul Nakhmanson-Kulish (raoul_at_elforsoft.com)
Date: 05/19/05

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    Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 10:02:31 +0400
To: Bakchodiya <bakchodiya@yahoo.com>

    Hello, Bakchodiya!

    On 19.05.2005 0:27 you wrote:

    > Lets compose an email in MS Outlook, lets type
    > http://www.cybertrion.com & put a space after it to
    > make it a link. Now put your cursor just before
    > cybertrion & type any URL for eg:
    > http://www.foo-labs.info now send it to anyone. The
    > receiver will see the URL as http://www.foo-labs.info
    > but when he clicks on it it will directly take him to
    > http://www.cybertrion.com
    > I am not sure how critical this is but it can fool
    > alot of people & result in download of a virus.
    This "bug" is a standard feature of HTML (including, of course, HTML
    messages): you may specify any URL in <a href="..."> regardless of link
    text. This is a wide-spreaded trick for phishing, and you haven't
    discovered the America ;)

    But at the same time Outlook (prior to 2003) really is more vulnerable
    than some other mail clients because it doesn't show a real link URL to
    user. Outlook 2003 shows an URL as a tooltip but after short delay, and
    some impatient users may be phished.

    I prefer to use Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird, it shows a real URL in status
    bar instantly and moreover has a phishing detection algorithm (Mozilla
    bug #279191). Especially I like a "View -> Message body as -> Simple
    HTML" feature which removes any little bit danger HTML tags and
    attributes from message before showing it but saves hypertext logical
    formatting. 

    -- 
Regards,
Raoul Nakhmanson-Kulish,
Elfor Soft Ltd.,
IT Department
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