CVE-2003-0604
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedWindows Media Player (WMP) 7 and 8, as running on Internet Explorer and possibly other Microsoft products that process HTML, allows remote attackers to bypass zone restrictions and access or execute arbitrary files via an IFRAME tag pointing to an ASF file whose Content-location contains a File:// URL.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceWindows Media Player 7 and 8 contain a vulnerability where an IFRAME tag pointing to an ASF file with a Content-location header containing a file:// URL allows attackers to bypass Internet Explorer security zone restrictions and access or execute arbitrary files on the victim's system.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 7= 8CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Windows Media Player installationOpen Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) and look for 'Windows Media Player' in the installed programs list. Alternatively, open WMP and go to Help > About Windows Media Player.Affected if Windows Media Player is not installed on the system, then they are not affected by this specific vulnerability.
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Determine the exact version numberIn Windows Media Player, click Help > About Windows Media Player and note the version number displayed (for example: 7.1 or 8.0). Or run 'wmplayer.exe /RegServer' from command line and check the file version property of wmplayer.exe in the Windows\System32 folder.Affected if The installed version is exactly 7.x or 8.x (such as 7.0, 7.1, 8.0), then they are within the affected version range.
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Confirm Internet Explorer integration is activeOpen Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons, and verify that 'Windows Media Player' add-on is enabled under the 'Shockwave Flash Object' or similar media-related entries.Affected if The WMP add-on is enabled in IE (which is the default state), the vulnerability can be triggered when visiting malicious webpages.
The system is affected only if Windows Media Player version 7 or 8 is installed with the IE integration enabled, as the vulnerability exploits how these versions handle IFRAME tags with ASF files containing file:// URLs in the Content-location header.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply Microsoft's security patch for this vulnerability and consider disabling automatic playback of media files in Internet Explorer or upgrading to a newer Windows Media Player version.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2003-0604 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2003-0604 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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