Saint Double Kill, Who Killed Twice

Patron of Internet Explorer, VBScript that refused to die, and Office documents opened with too much trust.

Life

In April 2018 researchers at Qihoo 360 discovered Double Kill, a zero-day in Windows' VBScript engine exploited through malicious Office documents that loaded a web page. An object freed from memory but still in use allowed code to run on the victim's computer as soon as they opened the file. Microsoft fixed it in the May 2018 updates as CVE-2018-8174, and CISA lists it among the vulnerabilities used by ransomware too.

Prayer

O Saint Double Kill, who strikes twice with an object already dead, let our freed memory stay free and let VBScript rest in peace. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated by installing the May 2018 patches, disabling VBScript and opening attachments only in Protected View.

Dead object, live blow.