Aol Instant Messenger DoS vulnerability

From: hi im cruz (justcruznat_private)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 07:47:50 PST

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    As all Ascii-Symbols can be displayed in &#XXX; format, where XXX are
    numbers from 0-255, AIM seems not to check the XXX for higher values
    and some strings above 255 result in aim crashing completly or in part.
    
    E.g. the string ̂ will result in crashing the whole aim, but ̃
    will crash only the instant message window (̃ was only tested once
    by me).
    It will crash the AIM of the attacker too, because AIM displays the string
    in the attacker-Instant Message, so the attacker-AIM also tries to convert
    it and errors.
    
    There is already an unofficial fix available, which can be downloaded at my
    hompage: http://laugh.at/cruz
    The fix is an edited ate32.dll, which should be copied to the aim directory.
    With it, aim doesnt try to convert "&#XXX;"-type of strings anymore, a
    minimum drawback (note: with that fix, the attacker can use this exploit to
    crash other unfixed AIMs, but wont crash his/her own AIM).
    
    Affected versions: I tested this only on 3.5+ versions of AIM, but all other
    versions are most likely affected too.
    
    -cruz
    http://laugh.at/cruz
    
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