priestmaster has discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Studio, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a design error that allows program code within the "Load" event of a user-defined control to be automatically executed when a project containing a form that uses the malicious control is opened. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary program code.

Successful exploitation requires that the user is e.g. tricked into opening a Solution file in a malicious Visual Studio project.

The vulnerability has been confirmed in Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. Other versions may also be affected.

Note: It has also possible to modify Visual Studio's ".dsp" project files to include arbitrary post-build commands that are executed when the project is built.

Solution
Do not open or build Visual Studio project files from untrusted sources.

Provided and/or discovered by
priestmaster

Additional information by:
Donnie Werner, Exploitlabs

Changelog
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Original Advisory
Microsoft KB841189:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841189

Team Priestmasters Research Facility:
http://www.priestmaster.org/projects/advisories/vsadvisorie.txt

Exploitlabs:
http://exploitlabs.com/files/advisories/EXPL-A-2006-002-msvc-featurebug.txt

Deep Links
Links available to Secunia VIM customers