A tough week for media software. Users of both Real (Helix DNA server) and Microsoft (Winamp) face critical newly discovered vulnerabilities. IBM's DB2 database is also on the hit seta this week. You'll also notice in Part II that more than one hundred new Cross Site Scripting, SQL Injection, and other Web Application security flaws were discovered this week. That level of new discoveries is a strong foundation for an epidemic of attacks against web applications.
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 Rob King and 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: Real Network Helix DNA Server, a popular media streaming server, contains two remotely-exploitable buffer overflows. One of the overflows lies in the server's RTSP service and can be triggered by a specially crafted "User-Agent" header. The other overflow can be triggered by a malformed HTTP URL scheme. The flaws can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the server process, often root. Depending on the server configuration, no authentication would be necessary to exploit this vulnerability.
Status: Real confirmed, updates available.
Description: Nullsoft Winamp, one of the popular media players on the Internet, contains a buffer overflow vulnerability. By tricking a user into opening a specially-crafted MIDI (a popular format for instrumental music) file in Winamp, an attacker can trigger this vulnerability and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that depending on how the user has configured Winamp, no user interaction beyond clicking on a link or opening an email message may be necessary.
Status: Nullsoft confirmed, updates available.
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: A vulnerability has been identified in the Microsoft HLINK.DLL library. This library is used by many applications to parse hyperlinks. By passing an overly-long hyperlink into this library via a specially-crafted file, an attacker can execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to trick a user into opening a specially-crafted file, and then clicking on a link in that file. It is currently not believed to be exploitable without user interaction. Users are advised not to click links in the documents from untrusted sources. Note that since this is a vulnerability in a core Microsoft Windows library, the number of applications affected is unknown. Proof-of-concept code has been written for Excel 2003 running on Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2000 SP4.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: All of the reporting council sites are awaiting additional information and a response from the vendor. They plan to deploy the patches during a regular update cycle once patches are released. One site commented that they will consider blocking affected file formats at their perimeters if there is a specific threat that they believe cannot be adequately handled through AV.
Description: IBM DB2 Universal Database contains multiple vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the database server process, or to create a denial-of-service condition. Failures in processing client-provided package information and client-submitted LOAD commands can allow an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code. Additionally, by sending a specially-crafted CONNECT or ATTACH command, an unauthenticated attacker could cause the database server to crash, resulting in a denial-of-service condition.
Status: IBM confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Four of the responding council sites are using the affected software. All of these sites are still in the process of investigating their level of exposure and vulnerability.
Description: The Opera Web Browser, a popular multiplatform web browser, contains a remotely-exploitable buffer overflow. By causing a vulnerable user to access a specially-crafted JPEG image file, an attacker can execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. No user interaction beyond viewing a malicious web page is necessary.
Status: Opera confirmed, no patches available. Opera 9 (the current version of the browser) is reportedly not vulnerable.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software; however it is not supported by their central IT department. They are investigating whether the vendor has any mechanism for notifying end users of critical security updates (after the updates become available).
Description: This vulnerability was reported in the @RISK Newsletter, volume 5, number 24. H. D. Moore has created an exploit based on the popular Metasploit framework. This exploit has been publicly released.
Council Site Actions: Most of the council sites plan to deploy (or have deployed) the patches during their regularly schedule system update process.
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 5051 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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