Some of this week's critical vulnerabilities are particularly troubling. Adobe Flash is being actively exploited and no patch is available. Multiple flaws in Apple OS X (versions prior to 10.5.3) can enable unauthorized remote control of Macs. IBM SameTime - being used in many sensitive military organizations - has a buffer overflow that will allow remote code execution. EMC, the leader in storage systems and owner of RSA and VMWare, has been selling backup software with multiple critical vulnerabilities. All are troubling, but Adobe's problems are likely to be affecting the most people. There is also a rumor that some Adobe product, when upgraded to a newer safer version, leaves the older vulnerable executables (unpatched) on the computer and doesn't tell the user. Has any @RISK reader checked this? Can you share your results with us? If true, it's very important. Email apaller@sans.org. 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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TRAINING UPDATE Where can you find the newest Penetration Testing techniques, Application Pen Testing, Hacker Exploits, Secure Web Application Development, Security Essentials, Forensics, Wireless, Auditing, both new Pen Testing courses, CISSP, and SANS' other top-rated courses plus evening sessions with Internet Storm Center handlers. - - SANSFIRE 2008 in Washington DC (7/22-7/31) SANS' biggest summer program with many bonus sessions and a big exhibition of security products: http://www.sans.org/info/26774 - - London (6/2-6/7) and Amsterdam (6/16-6/21) and Brussels (6/16-6/21) http://www.sans.org/secureeurope08 - - Denver (6/7-6/13) http://www.sans.org/rockymnt2008/ - - Singapore (6/30-7/5) http://www.sans.org/singapore08/ - - Boston (8/9-8/16) http://www.sans.org/boston08/ - - and in 100 other cites and on line any time: www.sans.org
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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 Flash Player is the most popular rich web content player on the Internet, installed by default on all Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X systems. It is also often included in Unix and Linux systems. It contains a remote code execution vulnerability in its handling of Flash files. A specially crafted Flash file could trigger this vulnerability, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. While there are very few technical details publicly available at the present time, this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild. Flash content is displayed by default in most web browser configurations. There are some reports of advertising networks being co-opted to serve malicious Flash content. Currently, only Flash Player on Microsoft Windows is being exploited; it is suspected that this vulnerability affects Flash Player on other platforms.
Status: Adobe confirmed, no updates available. Users are advised to disable their Flash player installation if possible.
Description: Apple Mac OS X contains multiple vulnerabilities in several of its components. Flaws in the handling of user and network requests, and several file, document, and media formats, can lead to arbitrary remote code execution with the privileges of the vulnerable process. Other logical flaws in the handling of authentication can lead to arbitrary information disclosure. Additional issues include cross-site-scripting and denial-of-service vulnerabilities. Several of these vulnerabilities stem from flaws in included third-party applications and components. Note that this update also addresses the Adobe Flash vulnerability discussed above.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Trillian is a multi-protocol instant messaging application from Cerulean Studios. It contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of several instant messaging protocols, as well as a vulnerability in its parsing of HTML. A specially crafted AIM or MSN message or HTML IMG tag could trigger one of several buffer overflow or memory corruption vulnerabilities. Successfully exploiting one of these vulnerabilities would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: IBM Lotus Sametime is an enterprise instant messaging and conferencing application. It contains a buffer overflow in its "Community Services Multiplexer" component. A specially crafted request to the Sametime server could trigger this buffer overflow, allowing 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.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: EMC AlphaStor is a popular enterprise storage management application. It contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of user requests. Its Server Agent and Library Manager components contain multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities. A specially crafted request to one of these components could trigger one of these buffer overflows, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process (usually SYSTEM). No authentication is required to exploit these vulnerabilities. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available. Users are advised to block TCP ports 3500 and 41025 at the network perimeter, if possible.
Description: Several Creative Labs products include automatic update functionality. This functionality is provided by the AutoUpdate Engine ActiveX control. This control contains a buffer overflow in its handling of its 'cachefolder' property. A specially crafted web page that exploits this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Full technical details and a proof-of-concept are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor 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, using CLSID "0A5FD7C5-A45C-49FC-ADB5-9952547D5715".
Description: MDaemon is a popular email server from Alt-N. Its IMAP component contains a buffer overflow in its handling of the IMAP "FETCH" command. A specially crafted FETCH request could trigger this buffer overflow. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process, usually SYSTEM. Note that authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. Full technical details and a proof-of-concept are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor has not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: Samba is a popular open source application that provides both server and client implementations of the Server Message Block (SMB) and Common Internet Filesystem (CIFS) protocol stacks, allowing non-Windows systems to access or provide Microsoft Windows-style services. Samba contains a flaw in its handling of server responses. A specially crafted server response could trigger a memory corruption vulnerability, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Exploitation would require an attacker to convince a user to connect to a malicious SMB server. Full technical details for this vulnerability are publicly available via source code analysis.
Status: Samba 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 5549 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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