A group of Japanese security enthusiasts has developed a little tool called IE'en which exposes traffic between an IE user and any server he's contacting, including logins and passwords over HTTPS.

The group, SecurityFriday, has made the tool available for download here.

To use the tool it's necessary to log in as a current user on a Win-NT or 2K system. Of course if someone can log into your account they already have a great deal of your life in their hands and this is only going to give them a little bit more.

What's interesting here is the ability to capture packets between the client and server by exploiting DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model), a Microsoft program interface allowing the mediation and exchange of program and data objects over a network, similar to CORBA.

According to MS, it "enables software components to communicate directly over a network in a reliable, secure, and efficient manner."

Well, reliable and efficient it may be, but 'secure' is clearly a bit of a stretcher. And as for a workaround, that's easy: make sure you have a strong password for your user account. If you think yours may be weak, or if you've shared it, then reset it. Ten characters involving a combination of lower and upper-case letters, numerals, and special characters will keep you safe from IE'en jockeys. ®