Active exploitation of this issue has been, and continues to be, observed. A primitive instant messenger worm has been observed that employs this vulnerability as a propagation vector. Additionally, there are reports that exploits for this issue are getting spammed to e-mail addresses. It is believed that exploitation of this issue will continue to increase. |
An attacker may leverage these issues to carry out a denial-of-service attack or execute arbitrary code on an affected computer with the privileges of the user viewing a malicious image. An attacker may gain system privileges if an administrator views the malicious file. Local code execution may also facilitate a complete compromise. |
Successful exploitation of this overflow condition could possibly allow a malicious attacker to create a denial of service disrupting backup systems or potentially allow execution of arbitrary code with elevated privileges on a targeted system. |
System administrators are advised to deploy the associated patches as soon as possible. |