CVE-2004-1043

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.0 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 45.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2004-12-31 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP SP2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by using the "Related Topics" command in the Help ActiveX Control (hhctrl.ocx) to open a Help popup window containing the PCHealth tools.htm file in the local zone and injecting Javascript to be executed, as demonstrated using "writehta.txt" and the ADODB recordset, which saves a .HTA file to the local system, aka the "HTML Help ActiveX control Cross Domain Vulnerability."

Affected products

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11: 6.0
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3: all versions

References

http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/bugtraq/2004-12/0426.html
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/972415
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA05-012B.html
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securitybulletins/2005/ms05-001
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/18311
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A1349
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A1963
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A2830
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A3496
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/bugtraq/2004-12/0426.html
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/972415
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA05-012B.html

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