Zero-day mitigation in Internet Explorer breaks Windows components

The workaround that Microsoft has released for a zero-day leak in Windows breaks certain Windows components. An official patch will follow shortly. Microsoft came up with the mitigation after the vulnerability was actively exploited.

Earlier this month, Microsoft released a mitigation for a zero-day in Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11 on Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and Windows Server 2008, 2012, and 2016. The vulnerability allowed remote code execution, which is performed by force a victim to visit a particular website in vulnerable versions of the browser. According to Microsoft, the leak is actively being exploited, although that happens ‘to a small extent’ on targeted targets. The vulnerability is coded CVE-2020-0674.

Microsoft says it won’t release an official patch until later. That probably won’t happen until Patch Tuesday. That patch will no longer be available to users of Windows 7, because it has been end-of-life since January 14 of this year. In the meantime, there is a mitigation. Users and system administrators should change the admin privileges of jscript.dll to %windir%system32 so that not everyone on a system can access it. However, there are now several users on social media such as Reddit who say that the mitigation breaks certain parts in Windows. For example, certain printers, especially HP, no longer work. Also, the Windows Media Player can stop working and proxy automatic configuration scripts no longer work.