Windows vulnerabilities and patches dominate this week's report, but Novell and Firefox users also have work to do.
Before looking at this week's @RISK, please complete this brief survey and email it to top20@sans.org.
The SANS 2005 Top20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities was done differently than in previous years. (a) Cross platform and application product vulnerabilities and networking equipment vulnerabilities were added to the operating system vulnerabilities. (b) The vulnerabilities covered in the 2005 study spanned a year and half of vulnerability data instead of trying to cover all of history.
Q1. Do you think those changes added value or made the Top-20 less valuable?
Q2. We are discussing moving to semi-annual updates. What are the pros and cons, from your perspective of moving to semi-annual updates?
Q4. What other data in the Top-20 would make this list more helpful?
Please send the answers and any other comments or concerns you have to top20@sans.org.
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 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: Microsoft has released a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer that fixes multiple vulnerabilities as well as provides enhanced security checks for ActiveX controls. This update addresses the 0-day flaw in IE's "createTextRange" function that is being actively exploited. The update fixes the following 8 remote code execution vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious webpage to execute arbitrary code on a user's system. (a) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability when methods designed for certain HTML objects are applied to other HTML objects. (b) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability that can be triggered by an HTML page containing a hundred or more of script action handlers such as "onclick", "onmouseover" etc. (c) IE's security checks and a user dialog box can be bypassed by a malicious HTML application. (d) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability in handling specially crafted HTML code. (e) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability in instantiating COM objects that were not originally designed to be used in that fashion. (f) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability in handling a specially crafted tag in an HTML element. (g) IE contains a memory corruption vulnerability in handling specially crafted URLs with Double-Byte character sets. (h) IE contains a remote code execution vulnerability in handling dynamically created embedded objects. In addition to these remote code execution vulnerabilities, the patch also addresses an information disclosure and a spoofing vulnerability (reported last week). The patch sets the kill bit for the ActiveX controls included with Danim.dll and Dxtmsft.dll. The technical details for a number of these flaws have not been publicly posted yet.
Status: Apply the patch referenced in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-013 as soon as possible. Microsoft has already documented known issues after applying this update. Please refer to the following KB912812 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912812 .
Council Site Actions: All reporting council sites are responding to this item. Some of the sites are updating their systems on an accelerated schedule, while others are using their normal update process. The desktop systems are on a longer update cycle due to the need for more extensive regression testing.
Description: Novell GroupWise Messenger is an instant messaging solution for internal communications in an organization. The Messenger server runs a web server on port 8300/tcp by default. This web server contains a buffer overflow that can be triggered by an HTTP request with the "Accept-Language" HTTP header longer than 16 bytes. The flaw can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the Messenger server with "SYSTEM/root" privileges. Exploit code has been publicly posted.
Status: Novell has released version 2.0 Beta2 to fix this issue. The fix will also be included in the 2.0 service pack.
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: Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) is a collection of functions that provide support for common database operations, such as connecting to remote databases and returning data to a client. The RDS.Dataspace ActiveX control, that ships as a part of MDAC, contains a remote code execution vulnerability. A malicious webpage or an HTML email invoking the ActiveX control with crafted parameters can compromise a user's system. The technical details required to leverage this flaw have not been publicly posted yet.
Status: Apply the patch referenced in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-014.
Council Site Actions: All reporting council sites are responding to this item. Some of the sites are updating their systems on an accelerated schedule, while others are using their normal update process. One site voiced some concerns that internal apps may be impacted since the patch addresses some ActiveX behavior. The desktop systems are on a longer update cycle due to the need for more extensive regression testing.
Description: The "desktop.ini", a hidden file when present in a Windows folder, instructs Windows Explorer how to display the folder's contents. A problem arises when the ".ShellClassInfo" section in a folder's desktop.ini file points to an executable program. This feature can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on a client system when an unsuspecting user opens such a specially crafted folder. There is also a second way to create a malicious folder that has not been publicly disclosed. To exploit the flaw, an attacker would have to create a malicious "shared" folder and entice a victim to open it via WebDAV or SMB. The attacker can include the folder's URI for e.g.\\attacker-ip\bad-folder(SMB) or http://attacker-ip/bad-folder(WebDAV), in a webpage or email it to a potential victim.
Status: Apply the patch contained in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-015. Block the ports 139/tcp and 445/tcp as it will block some attack vectors.
Council Site Actions: All reporting council sites are responding to this item. Some of the sites are updating their systems on an accelerated schedule, while others are using their normal update process. The desktop systems are on a longer update cycle due to the need for more extensive regression testing.
Description: Mozilla foundation has released a security update for Mozilla and Firefox browsers, Thunderbird email client and SeaMonkey code framework. The security update fixes 11 vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious webpage to execute arbitrary code on a user's system. In addition, the patch also fixes 8 other vulnerabilities related to spoofing, cross-site scripting and information disclosure. The technical details and exploit code are included in the Mozilla bugzilla but they will not be publicly accessible during the patch period.
Status: Upgrade to Firefox and Thunderbird version 1.5.0.2, Mozilla version 1.7.13 and SeaMonkey version 1.0.1. Ensure that users turn on the "automatic download and update installation" option in the Tools->Advanced->Update menu for the software.
Description: Microsoft has released a cumulative security update for Outlook Express that fixes a buffer overflow vulnerability. The flaw is triggered when Outlook Express tries to parse a specially crafted Windows Address Book (.wab) file. The overflow can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on a user's system. In order to exploit the overflow, an attacker has to host a webpage containing a malicious wab file or send it to the victims as an email attachment. Note that user interaction is required to open the wab file. The technical details required to craft a malicious wab file have not been posted yet.
Status: Apply the patch referenced in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-016.
Council Site Actions: All reporting council sites are responding to this item. Some of the sites are updating their systems on an accelerated schedule, while others are using their normal update process. The desktop systems are on a longer update cycle due to the need for more extensive regression testing.
Description: The following moderate to widely used web software packages reportedly contain remote file include vulnerabilities: vBulletin, Simplog, PAJAX, sphider, phpListPro, phpWebSite and Indexu. These flaws can be exploited by a remote attacker to run arbitrary code on the webserver hosting the vulnerable software packages. The postings show how to craft the malicious HTTP requests to exploit the flaws.
Council Site Updates: The software is not officially supported at any of the reporting council sites. However a few sites plan to upgrade their systems during the next regularly scheduled patch cycle. One site has already updated 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 4974 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
(c) 2006. 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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