Apple QuickTime and Microsoft Windows are the big problems this week.
@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 Windows Media Player contains a flaw in its handling server-side playlists (SSPLs), which specify lists of content to be played by the client. A specially crafted SSPL could trigger this vulnerability, leading to a memory corruption condition. Successfully exploiting this flaw would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that, in default configuration, malicious data may be opened upon receipt, including when opening a web page. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Graphics Device Interface (GDI+) subsystem of Microsoft Windows is used to render graphics to output devices such as monitors and printers. It contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of a variety of file formats. Flaws in the handling of Vector Markup Language (VML), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Windows Metafile (WMF), and Windows Bitmap (BMP) files could result in a variety of flaws leading to remote code execution with the privileges of the current user. Any application that uses GDI+ for graphics rendering, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, is vulnerable to these flaws. Note that, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, at least some of the vulnerable file formats are opened immediately upon receipt, without first prompting the user. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: QuickTime is Apple's streaming media framework for Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. It contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of a variety of media formats. A specially crafted QuickTime VR stream, PICT image file, or QuickTime movie could trigger one of these vulnerabilities. Successfully exploiting one of these vulnerabilities would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. QuickTime is installed by default on Apple Mac OS X and is bundled and installed with iTunes and the Safari web browser on Microsoft Windows. Full technical details are publicly available for at least one of these vulnerabilities. Note that affected content is usually displayed automatically upon receipt, without first prompting the user.
Description: Microsoft OneNote is a digital notekeeping application used with Microsoft Office. It contains a flaw in its handling of "onenote://" URLs. Clicking on a specially crafted OneNote URL could trigger this vulnerability. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Note that a user must click on a malicious link for this vulnerability to be exploited.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Microsoft Media Encoder suite is used to encode media files. Part of its functionality is provided by an ActiveX control. This control contains a buffer overflow in its handling of certain calls. A malicious web page that instantiated this control would be able to exploit this buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability. Note that the vulnerable software is not installed by default on any version of Microsoft Windows. Proofs-of-concept are available for the commercial Core Security CORE IMPACT and Immunity CANVAS exploit tools.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of this vulnerability by disabling the affected control via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism, using CLSID "A8D3AD02-7508-4004-B2E9-AD33F087F43C".
Week 37, 2008 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) 2008. 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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