Apple Macs are being targeted for many of the same types of attacks as Windows - this week both specially crafted PDFs and malicious web sites have been shown to be able to infect Mac OS-X and Safari and various third-party applications included with OS-X. Also, the security scanner, Nessus has multiple critical vulnerabilities and the Novell client for Windows has a buffer overflow has a critical vulnerability, as well.
Alan PS. Cost savings for SANS Network Security 2007 in Las Vegas (September 22-30) expire Wednesday, August 8, at 11:59 PM. EDT. http://www.sans.org/ns2007
@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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SECURITY TRAINING UPDATE
SANS Network Security 2007 (September 22-30, in Las Vegas) is the largest fall conference on cybersecurity with more than 40 courses and wonderful evening sessions and a big vendor exposition. Most importantly, it brings together the top rated teachers in cybersecurity in the world. How good are they? Here's what past attendees said:
"This course has valuable information that can be implemented immediately in the work place." (Christopher O'Brien, Booz Allen Hamilton)
"The quality of teachers, speakers, and even attendees is far superior to any other training event I've attended." (Corinne Cook, Jeppesen)
"SANS provides by far the most in-depth security training with the true experts in the field as instructors." (Mark Smith, Costco Wholesale)
Registration information: http://www.sans.org/ns2007/
Part I for this issue has been compiled by Rob King 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: Apple has released Security Update 2007-007, which addresses several vulnerabilities in Mac OS X, Safari, and various third-party applications included in Mac OS X. Flaws in WebCore and WebKit (the web frameworks used by most Mac OS X applications to render web pages), CoreAudio (Mac OS X's audio framework), and Quartz Composer could allow a specially crafted web page to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. A specially crafted PDF file could also lead to arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the current user. Additionally, flaws in the mDNSResponder subsystem could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. Several other flaws could allow arbitrary FTP command execution, cross site scripting, web response splitting, and other vulnerabilities. Numerous flaws in third-party components could also lead to a variety of vulnerabilities, including arbitrary code execution.
Status: Apple confirmed, updates available. Note that the vulnerabilities in WebCore, WebKit, and other components also affect the iPhone. Successfully exploiting these vulnerabilities would allow an attacker to take complete control of the phone. The Mac OS X updates are available via Apple's Software Update facility. The iPhone updates are available only through iTunes.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the responding council sites is using the affected software and they have already pushed the updates to their Apple desktops and servers.
Description: Nessus, a popular vulnerability scanning application, contains several flaws in its "SCANCTRL" ActiveX control. The control fails to properly validate calls to its "deleteReport", "deleteNessusRC", "saveNessusRC", and "addsetConfig" methods. A specially crafted web page that instantiates this control could exploit these vulnerabilities to overwrite arbitrary files, send arbitrary local files to a remote host, or delete arbitrary files.. Note that by overwriting certain files, arbitrary code execution is possible. Full technical details and proofs-of-concept are available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Nessus has not confirmed, no updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling the affected control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism.
Council Site Actions: Two of the responding council sites are using the affected software. One site has already updated to Version 3.0.6.1, and the other site will upgrade during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: The Novell Client for Microsoft Windows provides machines running Microsoft Windows access to Novell network services. This client exports a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface via a named pipe. Several procedures exported through this interface fail to properly validate the lengths of their arguments, and therefore and an overlong string provided to the interface can trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system. Some technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available.
Status: Novell confirmed, updates available.
Description: Ipswitch IMail and Ipswitch Internet Collaboration Suite, a popular enterprise mail and collaboration system for Microsoft Windows, contain multiple vulnerabilities in its implementation of the IMAP "SEARCH" command. An overlong IMAP SEARCH command would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process (often SYSTEM). Note that attacker would require authentication to exploit these vulnerabilities.
Status: Ipswitch has not confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: The affected software and/or configuration is not in production or widespread use, or is not officially supported at any of the responding council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: Xpdf, a Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer for the X Window System contains a buffer overflow in its handling of PDF documents. Xpdf or an application based thereon is installed by default on many Unix, Unix-like, and Linux systems. A specially-crafted PDF document could trigger this overflow, and potentially execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, depending on the configuration, PDF documents may be opened automatically by the vulnerable application without first prompting the user. Many PDF viewers and other applications use Xpdf or code from Xpdf, and are therefore vulnerable. Also, since Xpdf is open source, full technical details for this vulnerability may be obtained via source code analysis.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Two of the responding council sites are using the affected software, but on a limited basis. Both sites plan to patch or replace the software during their next regularly scheduled system maintenance cycle.
Description: The Mozilla Firefox web browser, Thunderbird email client, and SeaMonkey internet suite, contain a flaw in their handling of certain URLs when an addon uses the "about:blank" page. A specially crafted webpage could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary JavaScript with "chrome" privileges. These privileges are usually reserved for local JavaScript and involve the user interface. At the very least, attackers could use this vulnerability to alter the user interface (including spoofing the current location), in addition to other vulnerabilities. A proof-of-concept for this vulnerability is available, as are full technical details. Note that the exact nature of the vulnerability depends on the affected addon.
Status: Mozilla confirmed, updates available. Note that this vulnerability was introduced by the patch for the MFSA 2007-20 vulnerability.
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 5547 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
(c) 2007. 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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