Yesterday, I clicked on a search engine site that had some negative results-- however, I thought that things weren’t right and I cut my computer’s power supply (as it wouldn’t let me exit) quickly.
When I re-booted, I got a blue screen that said that Windows needed to repair drives. After this (it just seemed to get stuck on this), I ran an avast scan and it detected CVE 2007-0038. I quarantined it.
My question is-- does this mean I am out of the woods? Or, might my computer still be in trouble? Not being a tech person, what exactly does this bug do? Should I not do my taxes on this computer?
1/21/2008 3:47:51 PM 1200948471 SYSTEM 1436 Sign of “CVE-2007-0038” has been found in “http://hightstats.net/strong/039/324123.html” file.
1/21/2008 7:01:42 PM 1200960102 Owner 824 Sign of “CVE-2007-0038” has been found in “C:\WINDOWS\Temp_avast4_\unp135552855.tmp” file.
The file mentioned is not html, but ANI file and does contain the exploit. The very same file is detected by 25 of 32 product on VirusTotal scanning service.
An exploit takes advantage of (exploits) a security weakness in software to install malicious programs without your knowledge. Once these weaknesses (vulnerabilities) are found, they are fixed so that the exploit code no longer works. (AV companies also add the exploit code to their databases, so it is detected as malware.)
As a) this vulnerability was fixed in April last year- assuming you have updated Windows since then!- and b) avast! detected the exploit code, the answer to you question ‘Do I have CVE 2007 0038?’ is that you have the exploit on your computer, but you were ‘immune’ so don’t worry.
Scan for out-of-date and insecure software using Secunia Software Inspector and update any vulnerable software.