@RISK is the SANS community's consensus bulletin summarizing the most important vulnerabilities and exploits identified during the past week and providing guidance on appropriate actions to protect your systems (PART I). It also includes a comprehensive list of all new vulnerabilities discovered in the past week (PART II).
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PART I Critical Vulnerabilities Part I for this issue has been compiled by Josh Bronson at TippingPoint, a division of HP, as a by-product of that company's continuous effort to ensure that its intrusion prevention products effectively block exploits using known vulnerabilities. TippingPoint's analysis is complemented by input from a council of security managers from twelve large organizations who confidentially share with SANS the specific actions they have taken to protect their systems. A detailed description of the process may be found at http://www.sans.org/newsletters/risk/#process
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(1) HIGH: Microsoft Products Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Affected: Microsoft Office Microsoft Windows Media Player Description: As part of its patch Tuesday program, Microsoft has released patches addressing multiple security vulnerabilities in its products. Patches for Microsoft Office address two problems with the Windows Object Packager, which is responsible for checking for unsafe objects embedded in Office files. The problem involves ClickOnce files, which are self-updating executables that are designed to be installed and run with minimal user interaction. Because these files are not considered unsafe by Windows Object Packager, they can be embedded into Office files. Another patch addresses an improper registry key used by Windows Object Package manager. By enticing a target to open a malicious file, an attacker can use either of these vulnerabilities to execute arbitrary code on a target's machine without any other interaction on the part of the target. Two vulnerabilities affecting Windows Media Player have also been addressed. By enticing a target to view a malicious MIDI or DirectShow file, an attacker can exploit these vulnerabilities in order to execute arbitrary code on the target's machine. Status: vendor confirmed, updates available References: Vendor Site http://www.microsoft.com Microsoft Security Bulletins http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-002 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-005 SecurityFocus BugTraq IDs http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51284 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51292 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51295 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51297
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(2) HIGH: Adobe Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Affected: Adobe Reader X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh Description: Adobe has released patches for multiple unspecified security vulnerabilities and a signedness error in a component of Adobe Reader responsible for parsing BMP images. By enticing a target to view a malicious file, an attacker can exploit these vulnerabilities in order to corrupt memory and possibly execute arbitrary code on a target's machine. Status: vendor confirmed, updates available References: Vendor Site http://www.adobe.com Adobe Security Bulletin http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb12-01.html SecurityFocus BugTraq IDs http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51348 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51349 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51350 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51351
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(3) HIGH: Apache Struts Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Affected: Description: Apache has released a patch addressing multiple security vulnerabilities in its Struts web application server. Struts is used to serve Java servlets, which are web applications written in Java. One vulnerability involves a problem in Strut's reporting during exception handling, when user-supplied parameter values are evaluated as OGNL expressions. OGNL, an expression language for Java, allows for only a subset of Java to be used, but this is still enough for arbitrary code execution. Another vulnerability involves unsafe evaluation of cookie names, which can be used by an attacker to access static methods. By sending a malicious request, an attacker can exploit these vulnerabilities in order to execute arbitrary code on a target's machine. Status: vendor confirmed, updates available References: Vendor Site http://www.apache.org Apache Security Bulletin http://struts.apache.org/2.x/docs/s2-008.html
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(4) MEDIUM: Google Chrome Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Affected: Google Chrome prior to 16.0.912.75 Description: Google has released a patch addressing multiple security vulnerabilities affecting its Chrome web browser. The vulnerabilities include a use-after-free issue in animation frames, a heap buffer overflow in libxml, and a stack-buffer overflow in glyph handling. Google has not provided technical information for these vulnerabilities, but because they are related HIGH, it is likely that some of them can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on a target's machine. To do so, an attacker would have to entice the target to view a malicious site. Status: vendor confirmed, updates available References: Vendor Site http://www.google.com Google Stable Channel Updates http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2012/01/stable-channel-update.html SecurityFocus BugTraq IDs http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51300
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