Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird users should install updated software to protect their computers. See (3) below.
@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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************************************************************************************************** SPONSORED LINKS *******************************
These links point to sites outside of SANS:
1) 21st Century Cyber Forensics-is your system obsolete? Find out at our webinar on March 30th.
http://www.sans.org/info.php?id=738
2) Free Download! - Intrusion Detection/Prevention, File Integrity and Service Monitoring software
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Highlighted Training Program of the Week
SANSFIRE 2005, in Atlanta in June is SANS first training program
co-sponsored with the Internet Storm Center. Attend any of thirteen
immersion tracks and also learn about the Internet's early warning
system and how it can tell you which of your employers' computers may
have been compromised. Wonderful teachers give you material you can put
to work immediately upon returning to the office and present the most
current tools and techniques. Details at
http://www.sans.org/sansfire2005
What attendees say:
"SANS is the gold standard in network security training, in terms of
relevance of material, knowledgeable instructors, and sheer usefulness."
- Steve Keifling, SGI
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Part I is compiled by Rohit Dhamankar (rohitd_at_tippingpoint.com) at TippingPoint, a division of 3Com, 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/cva/#process
Description: LHa is a file compression format that was available prior to zip but is not widely used now. McAfee products support scanning LHa archives for malware detection. ISS X-Force has discovered a stack-based buffer overflow in the McAfee scan engine that can be triggered by a specially crafted LHa archive. The problem occurs due to insufficient buffer allocation for an LHa archive's "type 2" header during the archive decompression. The flaw can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with "SYSTEM" privileges on any system running a vulnerable version of the affected products. In order to exploit the flaw, an attacker has to deliver a specially crafted LHa archive to the target system. This can be accomplished via email, web, FTP or peer-to-peer file sharing. McAfee's advisory also confirms that the scan engine version 4320 (running DAT file prior to version 4357) is vulnerable to another publicly announced LHa decoding buffer overflow in May 2004.
Status: McAfee's Scan Engine version 4400 (released November 1, 2004) or higher, and DAT file version 4436 (released March 1, 2005) or higher are not affected. The McAfee products are typically configured to download updates to scan engine or DAT files. Hence, this issue is likely to be fixed by now on most systems.
Council Site Actions: Most of the reporting council sites are using the affected software. Everyone commented that they are using the auto-update feature and as such, the affected systems have already been updated. No further action is needed at this time.
Description: Java Web Start Technology is designed for easy deployment of Java-based applications to client desktops. The technology is based on Java Network Launching Protocol and API (JNLP). The JNLP file on a client describes how to download and launch an application. The handling of JNLP file contains a vulnerability that may be used to execute arbitrary commands on the client. Specifically, specially crafted "property" tag parameters in a JNLP file can be used as command arguments to the java executable. In order to exploit this flaw, an attacker would need to deliver the malicious JNLP file to the client system via web or email. Further, the attacker can turn-off the "sandbox" restrictions for java applets, which may be used to launch malicious applets that download malware to the client system. The discoverer claims to have developed a proof-of-concept webpage (not publicly posted) that launches an executable present on the client system. Note that Internet Explorer and other browsers may automatically open JNLP files. Hence, browsing a malicious webpage is sufficient for the client compromise.
Status: Sun confirmed patches available.
Council Site Actions: Most of the reporting council sites are responding to this issue and plan to deploy the patch during their next regularly scheduled system update process. One site is still evaluating whether the workaround can be used until the patch is applied. Another site commented they already keep Java up to date.
Description: Mozilla and Firefox browsers, and Thunderbird email client use a common library to render GIF images. This library contains a heap-based overflow that can be triggered by a malformed "netscape specific" extension block in a GIF image. A GIF image on a webpage or in an email can leverage this flaw to execute arbitrary code on a client system with the privileges of the logged-on user.
Status: Mozilla has fixed this flaw. Upgrade to Firefox 1.0.2, Mozilla 1.7.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.2. These versions also fix other security vulnerabilities - access to local XUL files, and another remote code execution vulnerability than can be leveraged if a malicious website has been added to the sidebar panel.
Council Site Actions: Due to the late breaking nature of this vulnerability, we could not solicit the council site input for this item.
Description: Apple has released a cumulative security update for Mac OS X systems. This update fixes a number of vulnerabilities that may be leveraged to compromise a vulnerable system. The important issues fixed by the update (discussed in the past issues of the @RISK newsletter) are: (a) Buffer overflow in AFP protocol parsing (b) Multiple vulnerabilities in Cyrus IMAP (c) International Domain Name spoofing in Safari browser (c) Vulnerabilities in Cyrus SASL package. In addition, the patch fixes a local privilege escalation vulnerability for which exploit code has been publicly posted.
Status: Apply the updates referenced in the Apple Security Update 2005-003.
Council Site Actions: Only two of the reporting council sites are using the affected software. One site has already deployed the patch to their servers and the other site is still testing the patches. They commented that they don't have any externally visible systems that are affected.
This list is compiled by Qualys ( www.qualys.com ) as part of that company's ongoing effort to ensure its vulnerability management web service tests for all known vulnerabilities that can be scanned. As of this week Qualys scans for 4164 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
(c) 2005. All rights reserved. The information contained in this newsletter, including any external links, is provided "AS IS," with no express or implied warranty, for informational purposes only. In some cases, copyright for material in this newsletter may be held by a party other than Qualys (as indicated herein) and permission to use such material must be requested from the copyright owner.
==end== Subscriptions: @RISK is distributed free of charge to people responsible for managing and securing information systems and networks. You may forward this newsletter to others with such responsibility inside or outside your organization.
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