I agree with Filip, an ActiveX control with an engineered buffer overrun
vulnerability is a back door. Something the programmer put in to get
privileged access later.

A vulnerability is there but the code requires an external catalyst to
activate, unlike a trojan.

> > I do not see the difference with a Trojan horse. A Trojan
> > horse looks on the
> > outside like something useful (or at least something harmless), but
> > something harmfull is on the inside. In this case, it
> > installs a sort of a
> > backdoor on the victim's computer, doesn't it?
>
> Not at all. A Trojan horse has the bad code in the program.
> The engineered
> hijack ActiveX program doesn't have "bad" code inside. An
> exploit would
> have to be created in addition to the ActiveX program in
> order to create any
> kind of malware. The engineered hijack ActiveX program just has the
> potential to be exploited. Of course, the intention of the
> programmer is to
> use the purposely installed vulnerability for an exploit.
>
> The only difference between this ActiveX that's been engineered with a
> buffer overflow and the ActiveX program that has a buffer overflow by
> accident is the programmer's intentions. The engineered
> ActiveX program
> without the exploit isn't be harmful. I guess you can argue that the
> programmer's intentions determine whether an ActiveX program
> is considered a
> Trojan horse or a program with a vulnerability.

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