Another zero day for Microsoft - -this time in XML Core Services, and a similar problem for AOL ICQ users. Visual Studio users have a new worry, as well. Also, Apple's wireless adapters are now being exploited through multiple 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).
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Part I for this issue has been 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: Microsoft XML Core Services, used to build XML-aware applications, contains an ActiveX control that contains a remote code execution vulnerability. A malicious web page that instantiates the XMLHTTP ActiveX control could exploit this vulnerability and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Some technical details for this vulnerability have been publicly posted, and this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling the ActiveX control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism, for CLSID "88d969c5-f192-11d4-a65f-0040963251e5".
Status: Microsoft confirmed, no updates available.
Description: America Online (AOL) ICQ, a popular instant-messaging application, contains a remote code execution vulnerability. The ICQPhone ActiveX control, included by default with ICQ, can be directed to automatically download and execute an arbitrary file from any URL. This file will be executed with the privileges of the current user. A specially-crafted web page could instantiate this ActiveX control and exploit this vulnerability with no further user interaction. The vulnerable control will be automatically updated when the user logs in to the ICQ network. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling the ActiveX control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism, for CLSID "54BDE6EC-F42F-4500-AC46-905177444300".
Status: AOL confirmed, updates available.
Description: Novell eDirectory, a popular enterprise LDAP server, contains two remote denial-of-service vulnerabilities: (1) By sending a specially-crafted request to the LDAP server, an attacker could cause the server to crash. The server will no longer answer LDAP queries (including authentication queries) until restarted. (2) iManager, a web-based management application for Novell eDirectory, fails to properly handle specially-crafted HTTP POST requests. The application will crash and no longer respond to clients until restarted. Note that this vulnerability is believed to crash the Apache Tomcat server as well, which could result in a denial-of-service for any other application hosted on that Tomcat instance. No authentication is required to exploit either of these vulnerabilities. Some technical details have been publicly posted.
Status: Novell 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: Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft's multi-language integrated development environment, contains an ActiveX control that contains a remote code execution vulnerability. A malicious web page which instantiates this control could exploit this vulnerability and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Working exploit code and technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available, and it is believed that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling instantiation of this control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism for CLISD "7F5B7F63-F06F-4331-8A26-339E03C0AE3D".
Status: Microsoft confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: All responding council sites are responding to this item on some level. Most are evaluating whether to set the Kill Bit on installations. One site commented they have blocked this traffic using their perimeter active content protection mechanism. At another site, some of the users have set the Kill Bit on their own. One desktop support group does not plan to take action.
Description: Cisco Security Agent Management Center (CSAMC, also known as Management Center for Cisco Security Agents), used to centrally configure and administer security policies, contains an authentication bypass vulnerability. When configured to authenticate administrator accounts via LDAP, attackers who provide a valid administrator username and a blank password can gain access to the CSAMC with the privileges of that administrator. Users are advised to disable LDAP authentication for administrator accounts if possible.
Status: Cisco 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.
Council Site Actions: Only two sites responded to this item. One has sent the alert information to their networking support group. The other site plans to watch this item carefully. They stated that the binary driver issue being debated in the FOSS community has raised interest in this sort of attack.
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 5247 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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