Knowledge Base

The vmdbCOM component is not marked “safe for scripting,” which initiates warnings before a malicious script can be executed.

There is no privilege escalation with this exploit because vmdbCOM is meant to be used as a component to desktop applications and not as a component that is invoked from a Web page. vmdbCOM does not need to be more safe than any other ActiveX controls installed on the system by any other application.

 

If vmdbCOM were invoked from a Web page, this exploit would require Microsoft Windows to run with Administrator privilege and Internet Explorer to be configured to run unsafe ActiveX controls.

 

The overall safety of a given ActiveX control must be considered not only in terms of the ActiveX control itself (vmdbCOM is no less safe than many other ActiveX controls installed on Windows sytems), but also in terms of the privileges of the process calling it and the trustworthiness of the code controlling that calling process.