This was a big week for newly discovered vulnerabilities. Action: Oracle users should install the new patch covering 23 vulnerabilities including SQL injection and buffer overflows. Prediction: This is the year you will see application level attacks mature and proliferate. As hackers focus more on applications, Oracle may start competing with Microsoft as the vendor delivering software with the most critical vulnerabilities. Alan
@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).
**************** Sponsored by SANS Orlando 2005 *************************
The largest security training conference in Orlando starts in just 14 days. Practical, timely, exciting training programs for every security professional. Fourteen immersion tracks for security practitioners, managers and auditors. Those seeking ISC2 CISSP certification will find the nation's top rated prep course at SANS Orlando, too. Plus seven one and two day short courses. And Orlando is comfortably warm in February! Details: http://www.sans.org/orlando05/
*************************************************************************
Part I is compiled by the security team at TippingPoint (www.tippingpoint.com) 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: Oracle has issued a critical patch update (CPU) for various products on January 18, 2005. The patch fixes 23 vulnerabilities including PL/SQL injection flaws and buffer overflows. This update is cumulative in nature i.e. it also includes fixes that were included in the Alert #68. While the vulnerabilities in the Oracle database server require limited privileges/access to be exploited, unauthenticated attackers can exploit some of the vulnerabilities in the Oracle Application server and the Oracle Collaboration Suite. The technical details regarding some of the security issues have been publicly posted. Another security group plans to release the technical details in April 2005.
Status: Apply the patch referenced in the Oracle's CPU - Jan 2005.
Council Site Actions: Most of the reporting council sites are responding to this issue. Most sites are regression testing their applications prior to rollout of the patches. Some of the sites are also blocking the Oracle service ports at their network security perimeters. Two of the sites are still waiting for vendor patches for their specific affected products.
Description: Nullsoft has released version 5.08c for Winamp, a widely used media player. The vendor has reported security issues in "in_mp4.dll", "enc_mp4.dll" and "libmp4v2.dll". In addition, a buffer overflow (rated "critical" by the vendor) has been reported in the "in_cdda.dll", the DLL associated with processing the playlist files. Note that another buffer overflow vulnerability, for which exploit code is publicly available, was reported in this DLL in December 2004. No technical details about the new flaws have been publicly posted.
Status: The flaws were reported by the vendor. Upgrade to version 5.08c.
Council Site Actions: Only two of the reporting council sites are responding to this item. Neither site provides support for the application; however, they have both advised their users of the risk. One of the sites is investigating whether they can provide an easy upgrade path for the users.
Description: Squid, a popularly used proxy and web caching server, contains a buffer overflow that can be triggered by an overlong response from a gopher server. The flaw can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the proxy server. An attacker can exploit the flaw by enticing a user behind the proxy server to visit his malicious gopher server. Note that many browsers interpret the "gopher://" URLs; hence, to exploit the flaw the attacker can craft a webpage or an HTML email. A malicious webpage, for instance, can contain an HTML frame with its source set to the attacker's gopher server.
Status: Vendor confirmed, patch available. This patch fixes another denial-of-service vulnerability in Squid.
Council Site Actions: Only one council site is using the affected software in the vulnerable configuration. They don't believe that Red Hat has published a patch yet. As such, they have implemented a workaround ACL fix that was recommended by Squid.
Description: It has been reported that the security warning (information bar) presented to the users, while downloading executable files from the Internet, can be bypassed in Internet Explorer on XP SP2. HTML pages, which dynamically create a frame with its source as an executable file, can be used for such a purpose. A malicious webpage may exploit this flaw to download malware like Spyware or adware on the Windows clients. A proof-of-concept exploit is included in the discoverer's posting. Note that the "standard" file download dialogue is still presented to the user prior to the download. Hence, the flaw can be exploited only with user interaction.
Status: Microsoft not confirmed, no patches available. Please refer to the links in the references for configuring IE with limited privileges as a general IE security trick.
Council Site Actions: All council sites are waiting for confirmation and a patch from Microsoft. Several sites said that they would roll out the patch during their next regularly scheduled system update process.
Description: MaxDB is an SAP certified enterprise-class database that is used by large companies like Intel and Toyota. MaxDB supports multiple web-based tools such as WebSQL, WebDBM etc. via its web server. The WebSQL component of this web server contains a buffer overflow that can be triggered by an overlong password. An unauthenticated attacker may reportedly exploit the flaw to execute arbitrary code with "SYSTEM/root" privileges.
Status: Vendor confirmed, upgrade to version 7.5.00.18.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites responded to this issue. They have notified their open-source support area to determine current scope of vulnerable versions and patch schedule. They will continue to monitor security sources and escalate as appropriate.
Description: AWStats is a perl-based log analyzer that can generate statistics for web, ftp or mail servers from the log files. When this software is run as a cgi application, it contains a remote command execution vulnerability. A specially crafted "configdir" parameter containing shell metacharacter such as a "|"(pipe) passed to this cgi can result in execution of arbitrary commands on the webserver. The problem occurs because the "configdir" parameter is not sanitized prior to being used in a perl "open" call.
Status: Vendor confirmed, upgrade to version 6.3.
Council Site Actions: The affected software is not in production or widespread use, or is not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: The Mnet NodeManager is a network management tool for Windows platforms that can receive SNMP traps and display them on the screen. The SNMP trap processing contains a buffer overflow that can be triggered by a specially crafted ASN.1 "octet string" in the trap. Specifically, any octet string greater than 512 bytes triggers the overflow that can be exploited to execute arbitrary code. Exploit code has been publicly posted.
Status: Vendor confirmed, upgrade to version 2.01.
Council Site Actions: The affected software is not in production or widespread use, or is not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: Xpdf is an open source viewer for PDF files on UNIX systems. The viewer contains a stack-based overflow in its "MakeFieKey2" decryption function. A malicious PDF document may exploit the buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code on a UNIX client. Note that Xpdf may be configured as a helper application for web browsers, in which case, the flaw may be triggered when a user clicks a link pointing to a malicious PDF file. The technical details regarding the flaw have been posted.
Status: Vendor confirmed, patch available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the responding council sites is using the affected software. They plan to deploy their patch via their Up2Date servers.
Description: Multiple exploits have been posted for the iTunes buffer overflow vulnerability discussed in the last week's @RISK newsletter. iTunes users should upgrade to version 4.7.1 at the earliest.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the responding council sites is using the affected software. They are in the process of pushing out the patch to the affected systems.
Description: NGSSoftware has released complete technical details regarding multiple RealPlayer vulnerabilities. RealNetworks issued a patch for these flaws in September 2004.
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 4024 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.
To subscribe, at no cost, go to https://portal.sans.org where you may also request subscriptions to any of SANS other free newsletters.
To change your subscription, address, or other information, visit http://portal.sans.org
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. No posting or reuse allowed, other that listed above, without prior written permission.