Flaws in IE Upgraded to "Critical"

Security issues continue to haunt Microsoft Corp., as the software company recently disclosed several serious vulnerabilities in its Java implementation and was forced to restate the severity of two flaws in Internet Explorer.

The Redmond, Wash., company earlier this month upgraded the severity rating of a vulnerability in the way that IE handles PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images. The browser fails to correctly check the parameters of PNG files when it opens them, which can result in a buffer overrun. Other Microsoft applications, including Office products, use IE to render PNG images, and using this vulnerability against one of these applications could allow an attacker to run code on a user's machine.

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