Outlook Express Flaw Elevated to Higher Risk   6/26/2005 - 930 views,

While the flaw is still considered to be low-risk in terms of the likelihood of exploitation, it is high-risk in terms of how serious the exploitation can be if it does occur, including allowing an attacker to take complete control of the user’s computer.

In order for an attacker to gain access to the user’s computer however, the user must use Outlook Express to read Usenet newsgroups, enabling the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), and further, the user must then visit a Usenet group which contains the malicious code designed to take advantage of the flaw.

Still, because the flaw and associated exploit are potentially so serious, all users with affected systems are being urged by Microsoft to update their systems here.