CVE-2015-0071 (Microsoft Internet Explorer ASLR Bypass)

What This Vulnerability Means

An ASLR bypass weakens one of the browser’s core defensive assumptions: that memory locations will be unpredictable enough to frustrate reliable exploitation. In practice, this does not create the entire exploit chain by itself, but it can remove an important barrier that helps turn a browser bug into a working attack.

For Internet Explorer, that matters because the browser was a common delivery path for drive-by attacks, malicious links, and compromised sites. When address randomization can be bypassed, an attacker may have a much easier time chaining the issue with another memory corruption flaw to reach code execution.

Why It Is Dangerous In A Browser

Browsers sit at the boundary between external content and local system trust, so weakening a browser mitigation has outsized value for attackers. If the exploit can make memory layout predictable, techniques that depend on reliable gadget addresses or repeatable memory targets become more practical.

The danger is not limited to one page load. A successful bypass can improve exploit reliability across many victims, which is why browser hardening features are treated as part of the security stack rather than optional extras. For a broader vulnerability-management view of how issues like this are prioritised and tracked, see Vulnerability Management Guide.

This page also fits the wider pattern seen in exploited weaknesses that expose keys, tokens, or other access material: once a control is weakened, the attacker’s next step is often to turn that foothold into durable access or execution. NHIMG’s The State of NHI & AI Agent Breach Report 2026 shows how often real-world compromise begins with exposed access material and then expands into lateral movement or deeper control.

How Organisations Check Exposure And Reduce It

Exposure review starts with asset inventory: identify every system still running the affected browser family, then determine where it is reachable and whether users browse untrusted content from those systems. Internet-facing endpoints and legacy desktops deserve particular attention because browser exploitation typically starts with remote content delivery.

Organisations should also compare their deployed estate against vendor guidance and the CISA KEV catalogue, because an exploited-in-the-wild issue should move to the front of the remediation queue. The authoritative places to confirm product scope and remediation details are the vendor advisory and the CVE Program record structure alongside NIST National Vulnerability Database entries when available.

If patching cannot happen immediately, reduce exposure by limiting access to untrusted sites, constraining browser use on sensitive endpoints, and preferring alternative browsers or application isolation where policy allows. The goal is to make exploitation harder while the permanent fix is staged and verified.

Detection And Post-Compromise Review

Detection for a browser mitigation bypass is usually indirect. Security teams rarely see “ASLR bypass” as an alert label, so they instead look for suspicious browser crashes, unusual child processes, script-driven exploit behaviour, and follow-on activity that suggests the browser was only the first stage.

After patching, review whether any endpoint showed signs of prior compromise before the fix landed. That includes browser anomalies, unexpected network connections, suspicious downloads, new persistence, and identity material that may have been accessed after exploitation. A control can be fully patched and still leave behind a foothold if the attacker already moved on to credentials or sessions.

When teams need a wider attack-path lens, MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Matrix is useful for mapping the likely follow-on techniques, while the CVE Program remains the canonical record for the vulnerability identifier itself.

Risk and Threat Considerations

An ASLR bypass becomes materially more dangerous when it is paired with another browser or renderer flaw, because the bypass increases exploit reliability and reduces the attacker’s dependency on chance. In a real attack chain, that can make a web-delivered exploit far more dependable across different systems.

Failure mechanism: The attacker uses crafted web content to neutralise memory randomization, then chains that weakness with another bug to reach code execution or other post-exploitation activity.

Impact: Victims may face malware delivery, session theft, deeper endpoint compromise, or broader lateral movement if the browser is a trusted entry point into the environment.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

• CVE-2010-0249 (Microsoft Internet Explorer Use-After-Free)
• CVE-2010-0806 (Microsoft Internet Explorer Use-After-Free)
• CVE-2010-3962 (Microsoft Internet Explorer Uninitialized Memory Corruption)
• CVE-2013-3893 (Microsoft Internet Explorer Resource Management Errors)