Corollary: Anatomy of a Bug

The Web:

For the uninitiated, the World Wide Web (the Web) is a method of delivering text, graphics, sound, animation and video to individual computers over the Internet. A Web page is an electronic document that can incorporate all of these elements, along with hyperlinks to other Web pages. To view Web pages you need a computer and a...

Web Browser:

A browser is a software package that can connect your computer to another computer somewhere else on the Internet, retrieve a Web page from that computer, and then display it on your screen. Currently, the browser market is dominated by Netscape Communications' Navigator and Microsofts' Internet Explorer. Microsoft also makes Windows 95, which includes the work-saving device called the...

Shortcut:

Essentially, a shortcut is an icon - or picture - that, when clicked on by your mouse, will launch a sequence of events that may, for example, start your word processing program. Shortcuts make Windows easier to use, but for users of Internet Explorer, they also opened the door to a serious...

Security Breech:

Ordinarily, Web browsers are designed to prevent Web page designers from medling with programs and files on your computer. But the shortcut feature in Windows 95 enabled designers to create files on their pages that would tell Internet Explorer to run programs on your machine. The programs in question were those that are part of Windows and that tend to be in standard locations on all computers. These include programs for creating, editing and deleting files, as well as data files that tell your computer how to operate. This breech left computers running Internet Explorer vulnerable to serious tampering. Using a shortcut, a designer might even have instructed your computer to erase all the data stored on your hard drive. Clearly, there was a need for an immediate...

Bug Fix:

The patch that Microsoft released shortly after learning of the bug from Paul Greene and his roommates does not preclude a designer from using shortcuts to affect your computer. But with the fix, Internet Explorer will detect such an attempt and give you a warning, enabling you to put a stop to it.

Lean More on the Web

Greene and his roommates created a Web page that explains how the bug in Internet Explorer works and provides a few nondestructive demonstrations that will run programs on your computer if you have a version of the browser that has not been "patched." If you've upgraded your copy of Explorer, you can run these demos to verify that the enhanced security features are working. The page is at: www.cybersnot.com/iebug.html If you have an older version of Internet Explorer, you may download the latest version directly from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/ie