Internet ExplorerApplication · Microsoft

CVE-2010-0491

HIGH · 9.3 CVSS v2.0 Published 2010-03-31
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
Use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 SP4, 6, and 6 SP1 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by changing unspecified properties of an HTML object that has an onreadystatechange event handler, aka "HTML Object Memory Corruption Vulnerability."

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-399

A legacy NVD category grouping weaknesses in how resources — memory, file handles, connections — are allocated, used, and released. It gathers leaks, exhaustion, and lifecycle bugs under one label rather than naming a single flaw. The fix depends on the specific resource issue, generally pairing acquisition with release and bounding what any request can consume.

General guidance for the resource management errors class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

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
Internet ExplorerApplication
Affected:= 6= 5.01
Windows 2003 ServerOperating system
Affected:all versions
Windows Server 2003Operating system
Affected:all versions
Windows XpOperating system
Affected:all versions
Windows 2000Operating system
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
M
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

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.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Recommended fix High confidence

Internet Explorer 7 or higher (IE8 recommended) on supported Windows systems; migrate to Microsoft Edge on modern Windows

  1. 1. Upgrade Internet Explorer to version 7 or later (version 8 or higher recommended)
  2. 2. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems, apply Microsoft Security Update MS10-018 (Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer) from https://technet.microsoft.com/security/bulletin/ms10-018
  3. 3. Alternatively, migrate to a supported browser such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox
  4. 4. Verify the installed Internet Explorer version by clicking 'Help' > 'About Internet Explorer'
Caveat Internet Explorer 6 and below are end-of-life; legacy applications relying on IE6-specific features may require compatibility adjustments

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
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Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-0491 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-0491 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data