One of the biggest weeks of 2007 for newly reported vulnerabilities:
The most critical vulnerabilities announced this week are in Excel and the .NET Framework. Overall, Windows had three, Office had two, and other MS products had one. Microsoft wasn't alone: Sun, Apple, Symantec, Adobe, McAfee, and Cisco also had high-risk vulnerabilities this week. Add to that the vulnerability in Progress Server, used by RSA Security and many other products, and you have a complex week for finding and mitigating 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 Excel contains multiple flaws in its handling of Excel spreadsheet files. A spreadsheet file containing a specially crafted Excel version code, number of active worksheets, or workspace information could exploit one of these flaws. Successfully exploiting one of these flaws would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, on recent versions of Excel, spreadsheet documents are not opened without confirmation. At least one proof-of-concept is publicly available for one of these vulnerabilities.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: All of the reporting council sites plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: The Microsoft .NET framework contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of .NET executables. .NET executables are programs executed by the .NET framework. A specially crafted executable could exploit flaws in the framework's Just In Time compiler (JIT) or in its Portable Executable (PE) loader. Successfully exploiting these vulnerabilities would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, depending on configuration, certain .NET executables may run without first prompting the user. An additional information disclosure vulnerability in ASP.NET is also addressed by this bulletin.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: All of the reporting council sites plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: Microsoft Active Directory contains a flaw in its handling of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) requests. A specially crafted LDAP request containing an inaccurate number of convertible attributes could trigger this vulnerability. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process (usually SYSTEM). Note that on Windows Server 2003, an attacker would first need valid authentication credentials before exploiting this vulnerability; Windows 2000 does not require authentication. An additional denial-of-service vulnerability is also addressed by this security bulletin.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: All of the reporting council sites plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: Adobe Flash Player, a player for the Flash file format used to deliver interactive content in web pages, presentations, and other contexts, contains an input validation error. A specially crafted Flash file could trigger this error, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that Flash content is often played automatically when loading a web page. Adobe Flash Player is installed by default on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and some distributions of Linux. An information disclosure vulnerability was also addressed by this update.
Status: Adobe confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Adobe Flash is not supported at most council sites, but they plan to address as needed in their next regularly scheduled maintenance cycle.
Description: Progress Server is an enterprise development platform used in a variety of software, including RSA security and authentication products. A flaw in its handling of input can lead to a buffer overflow condition. An attacker sending an overlong string to the "mprosrv.exe" process could trigger this buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Full technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available.
Status: Progress confirmed, updates available. RSA has also confirmed, and made updates available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is acting on this vulnerability. They are investigating to determine if they have exposure from RSA products on UNIX platforms.
Description: Cisco Unified CallManager and Cisco Unified Communications Manager, used to handle Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other communications, contain multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Specially crafted requests to the software could trigger a buffer overflow in the "CTLProvider.exe" or "RisDC.exe" components. Successfully exploiting these buffer overflows would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process and potentially obtain complete control of the affected system. Note that these vulnerabilities could lead to a loss or disruption of telephone service on VoIP networks.
Status: Cisco confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software and they plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: Products using the Symantec AntiVirus engine are vulnerable to multiple buffer overflows when parsing CAB ("cabinet") and RAR archive files. These archive file formats are widely used to distribute applications, updates, documents, and other software. A specially crafted CAB or RAR archive could trigger a buffer overflow in the antivirus engine, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Note that these files need not be explicitly downloaded or opened in some cases; when the antivirus engine is used to scan email, for example, simply sending an email that transits a vulnerable server is sufficient for exploitation.
Status: Symantec confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software and they plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: The McAfee Common Management Agent, used in a variety of McAfee products to handle system management and maintenance, contains multiple memory corruption vulnerabilities. A specially crafted request to any product using the agent could trigger one of these vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process (usually SYSTEM). Status:
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software and they plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: Apple QuickTime, Apple's framework for streaming media, contains multiple vulnerabilities ranging from remote code execution to information disclosure. A specially crafted movie file, Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL file, or website could trigger a memory corruption, integer overflow, or design flaw and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, in many cases, QuickTime movies play without further prompting. For some vulnerabilities, a user would need to visit a malicious web site to be compromised. An information disclosure vulnerability was also addressed by this security update. Note that QuickTime on both Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows is affected. Description: Apple confirmed, updates available. Status:
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software and they plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: The Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Java Development Kit (JDK) contain flaws in their handling of Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) documents. A specially crafted XSLT stylesheet contained inside an XML signature could trigger this vulnerability and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the process that opened the XSLT stylesheet. Technical details are available for this vulnerability.
Status: Sun confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Some of the reporting council sites are investigating if they have exposure from this vulnerability. No action has been determined at this point in time.
Description: Microsoft Publisher contains a flaw in the way it handles Publisher files. A specially crafted Publisher file could trigger this flaw, causing an invalid memory reference in Publisher. Successfully exploiting this flaw would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that the affected version of Publisher does not open files without first prompting the user. Some technical information is available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the reporting council sites is using the affected software and they plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) contains a buffer overflow vulnerability when used on Microsoft Windows XP. By sending a specially crafted URL to an IIS server, an attacker could trigger this buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Note that only IIS installations on Microsoft Windows XP are vulnerable. Full technical details and a proof-of-concept are available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: All of the reporting council sites plan to distribute the updates during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: 3Com TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) fail to properly inspect traffic if that traffic has been fragmented in a certain way. By sending specially fragmented traffic, an attacker could bypass inspection by TippingPoint devices, potentially opening systems behind TippingPoint devices open to attack.
Status: TippingPoint 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 responding council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: Microsoft Teredo is a technology designed to ease the migration of Windows systems to networks using IPv6. This technology allows IPv6 traffic to be sent to a host connected to an IPv4 network. By persuading a user to click on a link containing a Teredo address, an attacker could cause the Teredo subsystem on a victim's machine to become active. When in this active state, an attacker could determine the firewall rules in effect on a victim's machine, determine if the victim's machine is present on the network, or potentially bypass certain firewall rules.
Status: Microsoft 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 responding council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
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 5465 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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