CVE-2010-0249 — Microsoft
HIGHCVE-2010-0249 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Use After Free vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-05-20) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 6 SP1, 7, and 8 on Windows 2000 SP4; Windows XP SP2 and SP3; Windows Server 2003 SP2; Windows Vista Gold, SP1, and SP2;…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-05-20. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2026-06-03.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2010-0249.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2010-0249 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 6 SP1, 7, and 8 on Windows 2000 SP4; Windows XP SP2 and SP3; Windows Server 2003 SP2; Windows Vista Gold, SP1, and SP2; Windows Server 2008 Gold, SP2, and R2; and Windows 7 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by accessing a pointer associated with a deleted object, related to incorrectly initialized memory and improper handling of objects in memory, as exploited in the wild in December 2009 and January 2010 during Operation Aurora, aka "HTML Object Memory Corruption Vulnerability."
Affected Products
internet explorermicrosoftResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Microsoft Internet Explorer - 'Aurora' Memory Corruption (MS10-002) (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Jul 12, 2010
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 - 'Aurora' Memory Corruption (MS10-002)
by Ahmed Obied · Jan 17, 2010
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2010-0249 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2010-0249 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.