Microsoft is inspecting public reports of a probable vulnerability in Windows Vista’s speech recognition feature. Microsoft’s initial investigation discloses that this vulnerability could allow an attacker to use the speech recognition feature in Windows Vista to verbally execute commands on a user’s computer.
The attackers’ instructions are limited to the rights of the logged on user. User Account Control prohibits the attacker from executing any administrative level commands.
In order for an attack to be successful, the user would have to have a microphone and speakers connected to their system. In addition, the user would have had to configure the speech recognition feature. The attackers’ audio exploit (that’s a new!) would then issue verbal commands via the systems speakers that could potentially be carried out by the speech recognition feature.
Based on the initial investigation, Microsoft advises customers take the next actions to protect themselves from potential exploitation of the reported vulnerability:
A user can turn off their computer speakers and/or microphone. If a user does run an audio file that attempts to execute commands on their system, they should close the Windows Media Player, turn off speech recognition and restart their computer.
