This week had more highlighted critical vulnerabilities than any week I can remember. The most critical are in Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer, and in Pegasus Mercury Mail. Another important vulnerability was discovered in the JAVA runtime environment that is found on Solaris, Max OS-X and often on Windows systems. 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 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 provides eXtensible Markup Language (XML) parsing services for applications on Microsoft Windows, including such applications as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. A flaw in the handling of methods exported by this service could result in a memory corruption. Successfully exploiting this memory corruption would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Vulnerable components are reachable via scripts on web pages; therefore a malicious web page would be able to exploit this vulnerability. A proof-of-concept and technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Automation is a protocol that allows applications to share data and control other applications. A flaw in the handling of OLE scripts can result in a memory corruption vulnerability. Successfully exploiting this memory corruption would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Vulnerable components are reachable via scripts on web pages; therefore a malicious web page would be able to exploit this vulnerability. Some technical details are available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Internet Explorer contains multiple vulnerabilities. A failure to properly parse Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), used to provide styling information for web pages, can lead to a memory corruption vulnerability. Style sheets are automatically downloaded by Internet Explorer when visiting a web site that uses them. Additionally, several ActiveX components that were not intended to be instantiated by Internet Explorer can, in fact, be instantiated by Internet Explorer. A malicious web site that instantiates these components can trigger a memory corruption vulnerability. Successfully exploiting any of these vulnerabilities would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of the ActiveX vulnerabilities by disabling the affected controls via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism for the following CLSIDs: 8B217746-717D-11CE-AB5B-D41203C10000, 8B217752-717D-11CE-AB5B-D41203C10000, 8B21775E-717D-11CE-AB5B-D41203C10000, and 0DDF3B5C-E692-11D1-AB06-00AA00BDD685.
Description: The Vector Markup Language (VML) is an XML-based markup language used to draw vector images. It is supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer to display vectored images on websites. Internet Explorer contains a flaw in its handling of compressed image data referenced by VML documents. A specially crafted web page could exploit this vulnerability and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that VML data is rendered automatically by Internet Explorer. A simple proof-of-concept and some technical details are available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: Pegasus Mercury Mail Transport System is a popular and free mail solution. The Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) component contains a flaw in its processing of CRAM-MD5 authentication requests. A specially crafted overlong CRAM-MD5 authentication request could exploit this flaw and trigger a buffer overflow. Successfully exploiting this buffer overflow would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Full technical details and a proof-of-concept are publicly available for this vulnerability. While the flaw is in the processing of authentication requests, no authentication is necessary to exploit this vulnerability.
Status: Pegasus has not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: The Yahoo! Instant Messenger application allows for users to videoconference with one another. A user that accepts a videoconference invitation will then accept a JPEG-2000 video stream from a remote user. The Yahoo! Instant Messenger application fails to properly handle invalid JPEG-2000 data. A specially crafted video stream could trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability in the application. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that the user must explicitly accept the video conferencing invitation to be vulnerable.
Status: Yahoo! has not confirmed, no updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by blocking TCP port 5100 at the network perimeter, if possible.
Description: Microsoft Excel contains a flaw in its parsing of Excel spreadsheet files. A specially crafted spreadsheet file could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. It is believed that only Excel Workspace files are affected. Note that some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability. Excel files do not open without first prompting on versions of Microsoft Office later than Microsoft Office 2000.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Opera Web Browser (generally just called Opera) is a popular multiplatform web browser. Opera contains a vulnerability in its handling of JavaScript scripts. A specially crafted web page containing such a script could trigger this vulnerability and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that some technical details, including details on vulnerability discovery and instructions for exploitation, are publicly available. Opera is commonly deployed on mobile and embedded devices, but is widely used in desktop environments as well.
Status: Opera confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Sun Java Runtime Environment contains a flaw in the handling of font files. These files can be included with remotely launched Java applets and applications. A specially crafted font file could exploit this flaw and trigger a buffer overflow. Successfully exploiting this buffer overflow would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that Java applets are often loaded automatically in web pages. The Sun Java Runtime Environment is installed by default on Sun Solaris, Apple Mac OS X, and several other operating systems. It is often installed on Microsoft Windows as well.
Status: Sun confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Microsoft Graphics Device Interface (GDI) allows applications to produce graphics and text on various devices. The GDI fails to properly handle the rendering of certain Windows Metafile image files. A specially crafted image file could trigger this vulnerability and leverage this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that Windows Metafile image files are not normally rendered by Internet Explorer; therefore malicious web sites cannot normally exploit this vulnerability. Other avenues of exploitation may include email attachments and downloaded files. Some technical details are available for this vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows Media Player is Microsoft's streaming media player for Microsoft Windows. This player supports "skinning" - the ability to alter the appearance and behavior of the player's user interface according to "skin" files. Windows Media Player contains several vulnerabilities in the parsing of skin files. A specially crafted skin file could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, in most configurations, users are prompted before downloading a skin file. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to convince a user to apply the skin once it had been downloaded.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows Vista allows users to run small applications on the desktop, referred to as "gadgets". These gadgets are generally visible and are often used to display continuously updated information (such as weather information). Several gadgets fail to properly validate their input, leading to an exploitable condition. The Feed Headlines Gadget (used to read RSS feeds), the Weather Gadget (used to display weather information), and the Contacts Gadget (used to display contact information) are all vulnerable. A specially crafted RSS feed, contact file, or link could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Lenovo Automated Solutions system is installed on Lenovo and IBM desktop systems and is used by support personnel to provide technical support. This system includes several ActiveX controls that contain various vulnerabilities. These controls fail to properly validate input to methods they export; these methods allow the execution of arbitrary commands, the downloading of files, and access to system configuration. A malicious web page that instantiated one of these controls could exploit these vulnerabilities.
Status: Lenovo confirmed, updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of these vulnerabilities by disabling the vulnerable controls via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism for the following CLSIDs: E598AC61-4C6F-4F4D-877F-FAC49CA91FA3, E598AC61-4C6F-4F4D-877F-FAC49CA91FA3, E598AC61-4C6F-4F4D-877F-FAC49CA91FA3. Note that Microsoft Security Update MS07-045 also disables these controls.
Description: Rsync is a file synchronization utility used and installed by default on a variety of Unix, Unix-like, and Linux systems (including Apple Mac OS X). This utility can be run in server mode, allowing remote clients to connect and synchronize data. This utility contains two buffer overflow vulnerabilities in its handling of overlong filenames. An attacker could exploit these buffer overflows to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Note that full technical details are available for this vulnerability, both in the advisory and through source code analysis.
Status: Rsync has not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: SurgeMail is a popular mail and groupware suite for several operating systems. Its included IMAP server fails to properly handle overlong arguments to the IMAP "SEARCH" command. A specially crafted SEARCH request could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Note that attackers would require authentication to successfully exploit this vulnerability.
Status: SurgeMail has not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: Fedora Commons is an open source project that provides tools for the management of digital media and content. A logic error in the handling of authentication requests when users authenticate via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) could lead to a condition in which a user is successfully authenticated with invalid credentials. Note that it is believed that this only occurs during authentication against LDAP servers; other authentication methods are unaffected. Full technical details for this vulnerability are available in the bug report and via source code analysis.
Status: Fedora Commons confirmed, updates available.
Description: The NetGear ReadyNAS is a storage appliance used to provide Network Attached Storage (NAS) on small and medium networks. A backdoor password is included in the configuration of the underlying operating system of the appliance. An attacker who knows the ethernet MAC address of a ReadyNAS device could easily determine this password and gain complete access to the device. Full technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available. Note that this product is also known as the Infrant ReadyNAS.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
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 5397 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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