Open source software for VOIP (Skype), network sniffing (Ethereal), and managing MySQL databases all had critical new vulnerabilities discovered this week.
@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 is compiled by Rohit Dhamankar 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: Skype is peer-to-peer software for making phone calls over the Internet using VoIP technology. The software has reportedly been downloaded over 178 million times. (a) The Skype client for all platforms contains a heap-based buffer overflow that can be triggered by specially crafted UDP or TCP packets. A remote attacker can potentially exploit this flaw to execute arbitrary code. The discoverers have posted some technical details and reported that a single UDP packet can be used for exploitation. (b) The Skype Windows client registers "callto://" and "skype://" URI handlers. These URI handlers allow Skype to be invoked via a web browser. These URI handlers contain a buffer overflow that can be triggered by an overlong URL. A malicious webpage or a Skype peer may entice a Skype user to click a specially crafted link, and exploit this flaw to execute arbitrary code on the Skype user's system.
Status: Skype has released updates for all platforms. Since the heap-based buffer overflow can be exploited by a single UDP packet, the malicious packet can be easily spoofed. Further, Skype clients listen on arbitrary chosen ports and use encrypted communications. Hence, firewalls or IDS/IPS systems may only offer a limited protection.
Council Site Actions: Only two of the reporting council sites responded to this item. One site has already applied the patches. The other site has users who use the software; however, it is not supported by their central IT department. They are not distributing any update guidance regarding Skype to their end users. They suspect that many end users have heard of the Skype security problem because of coverage in the technology press or general press.
Description: Ethereal, a popular open source network sniffer and protocol analyzer for Unix/Windows platforms contains buffer overflow vulnerabilities in parsing the following protocols: SRVLOC, AgentX and SLIMP3. These buffer overflows can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the ethereal process (typically "root" when ethereal is being used as a sniffer). To exploit these flaws, an attacker has to either inject the malicious packets into the network traffic being sniffed by ethereal, or entice a client to open a specially crafted packet capture file. The technical details regarding the buffer overflows and an exploit for SLIMP3 protocol decoder have been posted.
Status: Ethereal has released version 0.10.13 that also fixes DoS vulnerabilities in other protocol decoders in addition to the buffer overflows.
Council Site Actions: Most of the council sites are responding to this item on some level. A few sites have notified their users and recommended that they upgrade to the fixed version. The other sites will distribute the patches during their next regularly scheduled system update process. One site commented they the seldom use Ethereal on their workstations, so their SOP is to update to the latest version each time they use it.
Description: phpMyAdmin, a PHP tool to manage MySQL databases, contains a file include vulnerability. The problem arises because it is possible to overwrite the value of "$cfg['ThemeManager']" variable with user-supplied data such as a filename. This can lead to the execution of arbitrary PHP code. The technical details required to exploit this flaw have been posted.
Status: Vendor confirmed, upgrade to version 2.6.4-p13. The patch also fixes cross site scripting flaws.
Council Site Actions: The affected software and/or configuration are not in production or widespread use, or are not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: Multiple anti-virus engines reportedly contain a vulnerability that can lead to bypassing detection of malware in ".bat", ".html" and ".eml" files. The problem occurs because the detection engines stop processing these files if they are tagged with a fake executable file header. Note that with the increase in client-side attacks, bypassing malicious HTML detection may lead to spread of spyware and other malware on desktop systems. Multiple proof of concept examples have been posted.
Status: No official statement is available from the AV vendors at this time. The advisory also lists certain versions of the AV software that are not reportedly vulnerable.
Council Site Actions: All council sites are waiting for further information from their anti-virus vendor. Most sites use automated updates for the engine and dat files.
Description: Multiple exploits have been posted for the Windows Plug and Play overflow patched by MS05-047.
Council Site Updates: Most of the council site have already distributed the patch or will in the near future.
Description: Further details have been posted about vulnerabilities patched by the recent Oracle critical update. An advisory describes a critical flaw in Oracle 10g server (Enterprise Manager) running on Windows which can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.
Council Site Updates: Three of the reporting council sites are using the affected software and are in the process of updating their systems.
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 4604 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.
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