This week's top vulnerability is from Adobe and affects Windows XP and IE 7 users. See number 1 below. Apple QuickTime for Windows also need sto be patched.
There is finally some good news on the quest to reduce the number of security flaws in software. If we are ever going to turn the tide against the attackers, we have to find a way to deploy more secure code. Only programmers who know how to write secure code can make that happen. The good news is that 23 programmers, (out of 42 pioneers who took the first exam) passed the GSSP exams in Secure Coding in Java and Secure Coding in C. Cisco is in the lead among software and hardware companies with three people passing the first exams. Other companies with new GSSP certified programmers include Kaiser Permanente, Siemens, Telus and more. The names and organizations of people who passed are listed in the last story of this issue.
Momentum on the GSSP has begun. One large US company has told all its 6,500 programmers and outsourced coders that they have until next summer to pass the secure coding exam or they will not be allowed to touch the code. And one of the three largest software companies in the world just sent letters to the ten colleges that supply the most programmers telling them that job candidates should consider demonstrating secure coding skills through the GSSP.
Alan
P.S. For a schedule of times and places where programmers can take the exam: http://www.sans.org/gssp/
@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: Adobe has disclosed information related to a remote code execution vulnerability in its Portable Document Format (PDF) viewing applications that was discussed in an earlier edition of @RISK. A specially crafted PDF file could trigger this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code when the file is viewed. Only systems running Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 are vulnerable. Microsoft Windows Vista is not affected. The flaw relates to a failure to properly handle URLs included in PDF files. Some technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available, and a proof-of-concept is believed to be available in the wild.
Status: Adobe confirmed, no updates available. A workaround is available in Adobe's advisory.
Description: Borland InterBase is a popular enterprise database server. The Firebird database is a popular database server based on the open source release of Borland InterBase. These servers contain multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities in their handling of database requests. A specially crafted request to the database server could trigger one of these buffer overflows and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Some of these buffer overflows may be exploitable via SQL injection vulnerabilities in externally facing websites. Multiple exploits are available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Firebird updates available. No vendor-supplied patches appear to be available for Borland InterBase.
Description: QuickTime is Apple's streaming media framework, and is available for Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. The Microsoft Windows version contains a flaw in its handling of URLs. A specially crafted QuickTime Link (QTL) file containing a URL could trigger this vulnerability and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary script code with the privileges of the current user. This issue may be related to an issue discussed in a previous @RISK. Note that this issue only affects QuickTime when installed on Microsoft Windows; QuickTime on Apple Mac OS X is not affected.
Status: Apple confirmed, updates available.
Description: The X Font Server is used by the X Window System to serve fonts to remote clients for display. The X.org reference implementation of this software is considered to be the standard implementation and is the most widely deployed version. It is installed by default on numerous Unix, Unix-like, and Linux operating systems. It contains multiple memory corruption vulnerabilities. A specially crafted request to the server could exploit one of these vulnerabilities an allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. While the vulnerable software is installed on a wide selection of operating systems, Sun's Solaris is the only major operating system known to expose the vulnerable software remotely. Technical details for this vulnerability are available via source code analysis. Other X implementations, such as XFree86 may also be vulnerable, but currently only the X.org implementation included with Sun Solaris is known to be remotely vulnerable.
Status: X.org confirmed, updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by blocking access to TCP port 7100 at the network perimeter, if possible.
Description: The Sun Java Runtime Environment contains multiple vulnerabilities. A specially crafted applet or application could exploit these vulnerabilities to access web pages or other network services other than the server that originated the applet, access arbitrary local files, or disclose information to the attacker. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities. The Sun Java Runtime Environment is installed by default on Sun Solaris, Apple Mac OS X, some Unix and Unix-like systems, some Linux distributions, and is very often installed on Microsoft Windows.
Status: Sun confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Altnet Download Manager is a popular download management application. Its functionality is exposed via an ActiveX control and this control contains a buffer overflow in its "Install" method. A specially crafted web page that instantiated this control could exploit this buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Some technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available. Note that this ActiveX control is included in the Kazaa and Grokster applications.
Status: Vendor has not confirmed, no updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling the control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism.
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 5549 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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