Malicious Word and Excel documents are being used to penetrate sensitive government and commercial sites. This week's critical Word vulnerability is another attack vector. In addition Novell's eDirectory has a critical vulnerability that could lead to disclosure of user data enabling further attacks, and Firefox and Thunderbird and other Mozilla products also have newly discovered critically flaws this week. 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: Novell eDirectory is an enterprise Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory server. It contains a flaw in its handling of LDAP delete requests. A specially crafted delete request could trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability. Successfully exploiting this buffer overflow would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Note that LDAP directories often contain user information, which could lead to further exploits. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Novell confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Microsoft Jet database engine is used to provide database access and functionality to a variety of applications, including Microsoft Word. A buffer overflow vulnerability is present in the database engine, and this overflow can be exploited via a specially crafted Word document. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, on recent versions of Microsoft Word, documents are not opened upon receipt without further user interaction. Reports indicate that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. It is currently unknown whether other applications using the Jet datbase engine are vulnerable. This vulnerability is believed to be related to a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the Microsoft Jet database engine, for which full technical details and a proof-of-concept are publicly available. If this is the case, then this advisory indicates a new exploitation vector for that vulnerability.
Status: Microsoft confirmed, no updates available. Note that users of Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 are not vulnerable.
Description: Several products from the Mozilla Foundation, including its popular Firefox web browser, internet suite SeaMonkey, and email client Thunderbird, contain multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities stem from various input validation vulnerabilities, and the consequences range from arbitrary remote code execution with the privileges of the current user to cross-site-scripting and denial-of-service. Full technical details are available for these vulnerabilities via source code analysis. Note that Thunderbird is not vulnerable to the remote code execution vulnerabilities in its default configuration.
Status: Mozilla confirmed, updates available.
Description: DNG or "Digital Negative" is an open image format created by Adobe. Apple's Aperture and iPhoto applications fail to properly handle certain malformed DNG files. A specially crafted DNG file could trigger a stack-based buffer overflow in these applications. Successfully exploiting this overflow would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that user interaction may be required to exploit this vulnerability, in that the user must manually load the malicious file into a vulnerable application.
Status: Apple confirmed, updates available.
Description: SurgeMail is a popular multiplatform mail suite for enterprises. Its Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) component fails to properly handle the 'LSUB' command. An overlong LSUB command could trigger a stack-based buffer overflow. Exploiting this buffer overflow would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process. A proof-of-concept is publicly available for this vulnerability. Note that an attacker requires authentication to exploit this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Adobe Flash CS3 Professional is a Flash rich content authoring system from Adobe. It contains a flaw in its handling of "FLA" files. These files could be likened to source code, and are not usually intended for end users. A malformed FLA file could trigger a vulnerability in parsing, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user.
Status: Adobe confirmed, updates available.
Description: Safari is Apple's web browser for Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. The Microsoft Windows version contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of input. A specially crafted download file can trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability, potentially allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user, though this has not been confirmed. Additionally, a site spoofing vulnerability exists, allowing an attacker to spoof the contents of the address bar. Proofs-of-concept are publicly available for both of these vulnerabilities. Note that the Mac OS X version of Safari is currently not believed to be vulnerable. It is not known if these vulnerabilities are related to those discussed in last week's edition of @RISK.
Status: Apple has not confirmed, no 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 5549 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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