Both Windows and Apple Mac users have something to fix right away. Millions of users of Winamp should download the new version. Otherwise they can be infected just by visiting malicious (or infected) websites, without taking any action to download or open anything (#1 below). Mac users need to install Apple's cumulative security update. (#2 below)
Call for experts: SANS annual Top 20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities ( http://www.sans.org/top20) is one of the most widely used security documents, because it provides a means of prioritizing vulnerability remediation. The 2005 Top 20 program managers would like your help in making sure it reflects the most current thinking of the experts. Please see the call for experts at the end of this issue of @RISK and contribute your expertise if you can. It's a very good feeling when you see your name attached to something as widely used as the SANS Top 20.
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).
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Part I is compiled by the security team at TippingPoint (www.tippingpoint.com), 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: Winamp media player uses "IN_CCDA.DLL" DLL to play CDs. The CD files to be played can be listed in a playlist file i.e. a file with an ".m3u" or ".pls" extension. The player contains a stack-based buffer overflow in the "IN_CCDA.DLL" DLL that can be triggered by a URI of the format "cda://<overlong string>" in the playlist file. The flaw can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged-on user. An attacker can exploit the flaw by creating a malicious webpage or an HTML email that contains a specially crafted playlist file. Note that when the user visits the malicious webpage, Winamp will automatically open the crafted playlist file. Hence, visiting a malicious webpage or viewing an HTML email is sufficient to compromise the user's machine i.e. no user interaction is required. Exploit code has been publicly posted.
Status: Winamp has released version 5.08c to correct the problem.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites plans to upgrade to the new version. Most of the other sites are either not using the affected software or do not officially support it; thus no action is planned.
Description: Apple released a cumulative security update for Mac OS X servers and clients. This update fixes the following important vulnerabilities. (a) Vulnerabilities in PHP that may be used to execute arbitrary code on a Mac OS webserver. These PHP flaws have been discussed in previous issues of the @RISK newsletter, and multiple exploits are publicly available. (b) A buffer overflow vulnerability in the libxml2 URL parsing function that can be exploited to execute arbitrary code. Exploit code has been publicly posted for this flaw as well. (c) Colorsync component contains a heap-based buffer overflow that can be triggered by a malformed color profile. The technical details required to exploit this flaw have not been posted yet.
Status: Apply the cumulative update which also fixes other less severe vulnerabilities in Safari browser, "at" command etc.
Council Site Actions: Three of the reporting council sites are running the affected software. All sites have already patched their affected systems.
Description: Another exploit has been posted for the "drag and drop" vulnerability in Internet Explorer that can be used to completely compromise a Windows system (with RealPlayer installed). An attacker can create a webpage that installs a malicious executable in the user's "Startup" folder. Note that Microsoft has not issued a patch for this vulnerability since its announcement in October 2004. An unofficial fix, as described in a previous issue of the @RISK newsletter, is to set the kill bit for the "Shell.Explorer" ActiveX control.
Council Site Actions: All council sites are waiting on a confirmation and an official patch from Microsoft. Several sites commented that they are relying on their current layered security protection methods.
Description: Cisco IP/VC family of products is designed for IP-based video conferencing. These products contain hard-coded SNMP community strings. An attacker can use these hard-coded SNMP strings to obtain complete control over the affected devices. Note that the IP/VC gateways bridge the IP and PSTN networks. Hence, an attacker taking control over the gateway may be able to make free calls, in addition, to disrupting the conferencing operations.
Status: Cisco is not going to provide software fixes for this vulnerability. The workaround is to block ports 161/udp and 162/udp to the affected devices.
Description: Remote attackers may exploit a vulnerability in the AIX OS, when configured as a NIS client, to obtain root privileges. The problem occurs because the "/etc/passwd" file contains the following vulnerable string: "+::0:0:::", when an AIX machine is configured as a NIS client.
Status: IBM has released an emergency fix. A workaround is to change the string "+::0:0:::" to "+:".
Council Site Actions: Two of the reporting sites are running the affected software and plan to patch in the near future. A third site has AIX 5.3 systems, but they are not running NIS client configuration on them.
Description: Mozilla and Firefox browser are being adopted by users as an alternative to Internet Explorer. These products contain following vulnerabilities. (a) A vulnerability in displaying SSL lock icon (on the lower right corner) of Mozilla and Firefox browser can be exploited to trick users into believing that they are browsing a secure site. The flaw can be exploited via specially crafted "view-source" URLs. (b) Another flaw in displaying the SSL lock icon can be exploited by downloading binary content from a secure site while browsing an insecure site. The SSL lock displays the secure site's certificate whereas the address bar still displays the insecure site.(c) Malicious webpages can script the user click behavior leading to download of malicious files on the user's system without any warning. The details regarding the flaws can be obtained by viewing the Mozilla bugzilla entries.
Status: Mozilla confirmed. Upgrade to Firefox version 1.0 and Mozilla version 1.7.5. These versions also fix a number of other less severe vulnerabilities.
Council Site Actions: Most of the sites have at least a few systems running Mozilla or Firefox. Several sites do not plan any action other than notification of their support group. One site has already upgraded their affected systems. One site has a large number of potentially affected systems. Their Mozilla UNIX systems will be updated later this month. They currently don't offer any support services for their Windows or Macintosh users of Mozilla and Firefox or support services for Firefox on UNIX. However, they believe that many of their users have their Mozilla or Firefox web browser configured to check for updates regularly, and will install an update once alerted. A final site is running the browsers, but not the older versions.
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 4048 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==
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Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. No posting or reuse allowed, other that listed above, without prior written permission.
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SANS CRITICAL INTERNET THREATS 2005
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SANS Critical Internet Threats research is undertaken annually and provides the basis for the SANS "Top-20" report. The "Top-20" report describes the most serious internet security threats in detail, and provides the steps to identify and mitigate these threats.
The "Top-20" began its life as a research study undertaken jointly between the SANS Institute and the National Infrastructure Protection Centre (NIPC) at the FBI. Today thousands of organizations from all spheres of industry are using the "Top-20" as a definitive list to prioritize their security efforts.
The current "Top-20" is broken into two complimentary yet distinct sections:
The 2005 Top-20 will once again create the experts' consensus on threats - - the result of a process that brings together security experts, leaders, researchers and visionaries from the most security-conscious federal agencies in the US, UK and around the world; the leading security software vendors and consulting firms; the university-based security programs; many other user organizations; and the SANS Institute. In addition to the Windows and UNIX vulnerabilities, this year's research will also focus on the 10 most severe vulnerabilities in the Cisco platforms.
For reference a copy of the 2004 paper is available online: http://www.sans.org/top20.htm. *A list of participants may be found in the Appendix.
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CALL FOR SECURITY and ASSURANCE EXPERTS
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If you are interested in the Top-20 2005 research please contact the Director Top-20, Ross Patel (rpatel@sans.org), with the following details: