The Windows Kernel problem is really important, but automated patching seems to handle it. Also the 50 million instances of FoxIt PDF reader need to be fixed, but does that happen automatically? 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 Rohan Kotian 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: Windows kernel, the core of the Microsoft operating system, has multiple vulnerabilities. One of them is a remote code execution vulnerability caused due to an error in the Windows kernel while validating inputs that are passed from the user-mode through the kernel component of Microsoft Windows graphics device interface (GDI). A specially crafted Windows Metafile (WMF) or Enhanced Metafile (EMF) when viewed by a user can be used to trigger this vulnerability remotely. To exploit the flaw in this scenario, an attacker can take any of the following actions: (a) Create a webpage containing a malicious WMF or EMF image file, and entice an attacker to visit his webpage. (b) Send an email with a specially crafted EMF or WMF image file embedded in it and convincing the user to view it or embedding the malicious image file in an Office document and convincing the user to open it. This vulnerability can also be exploited locally by an attacker logged on to the local system. There is an escalation of privilege vulnerability due to an error in the kernel while validating handles. With successful exploitation an attacker could execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. This is not remotely exploitable and the attacker must have valid credentials. The third is also an escalation of privilege vulnerability caused due to an error in the kernel while validating invalid pointer. This too is not remotely exploitable and the attacker must have valid credentials.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Foxit Reader, a small and fast Portable Document Format (PDF) document viewer and printer with over 50 million customer base, has multiple vulnerabilities in it. A specially crafted PDF with an overlong filename argument combined with an "Open/Execute a file" action defined when opened with the vulnerable reader can be used to exploit a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability. Successful exploitation can be used to execute arbitrary code or crash the application. There is authorization bypass vulnerability with the same "Open/Execute a file" action as a result of which the Foxit Reader will open/execute the file without confirming with the user. The third vulnerability is due to an error while decoding JBIG2 symbol dictionary segments, and this can be used to dereference uninitialized memory that might lead to execution of arbitrary code. Note that this JBIG2 vulnerability is different from the Adobe JBIG2 vulnerability. The technical details of these security issues have been publicly posted along with the some proof-of-concepts.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: IBM Corp's Tivolli Storage Manager (TSM), a storage management software for centralized and policy-based data backups, has a head-based buffer overflow vulnerability in it. The vulnerability is in "adsmdll.dll" which has an validation error while processing session related data. The vulnerable function allocates a fixed-sized buffer and only a part of that is used for session related data. The user supplied inputs are copied into that buffer without adequate boundary checks which can lead to a buffer overflow condition. Successfully exploiting this vulnerability could allow the attackers to execute arbitrary code with system or root privileges. And unsuccessful attempts can lead to a denial-of-service condition. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability. Details of this vulnerability are publicly available.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows DNS/WINS servers have multiple vulnerabilities in them. One of them is a spoofing vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows DNS servers. When an attacker sends specially crafted queries to a vulnerable DNS server and if the server doesn't reuse the DNS cache properly then the attacker is in a position to better predict subsequent transaction ID's and hence, could insert arbitrary addresses into the cache. There is another spoofing vulnerability in the Windows DNS server caused by the servers not caching correctly the specially crafted DNS responses. This could lead to DNS servers making unnecessary lookups thus leading to greater predictability of subsequent transaction ID's. Sites using the SSL/TLS are not affected by these vulnerabilities. A man-in-the-middle attack vulnerability exists in Windows DNS servers because of inadequate validation on who can register Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) entries on the DNS server. This could allow an attacker to create registration on the server if it doesn't already exist, point to an IP address that the attacker controls and thus allow the attacker to intercept or redirect the traffic. Please note that there is a possibility that the patched servers which already exploited before the patch was applied might still get exploited because of a WPAD entry from the previous attack. The fourth vulnerability is a man-in-the-middle attack vulnerability in the Windows WINS server caused due to inadequate validation on who can register WPAD or Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) entries on the WINS server. Successful exploitation can allow an attacker to intercept or redirect internet traffic. By default a DNS or WINS server will allow any user to create a registration. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Belkin BullDog Plus, a product from Belkin International, is designed to protect the equipments of the end users from potential damages. The application comes in with a built-in HTTP server which is not enabled by default. The authentication mechanism for the HTTP server is Basic Authentication. This server has a boundary error in the base64 decoding error which handles the Basic Authentication data. So an overlong HTTP authentication with a specially crafted base64 encoded data can be used by an attacker to overflow the buffer. Successful exploitation may lead to arbitrary code execution. Some technical detail is available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: MediaCoder is a free universal media transcoder for integrating the most popular audio/video codecs. It has a buffer overflow vulnerability while processing specially crafted '.m3u' playlist file. The vulnerability is caused due to inadequate boundary checks while processing '.m3u' playlist files with an overly long filename in the "Properties" dialog item. User interaction is needed where the victim has to open the malicious file with the vulnerable application. Successful exploitation can leveraged to execute arbitrary code in the context of the user running the application. Technical details are available for this vulnerability along with some public Proof of Concept.
Status: Vendor confirmed, no updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows Secure Channel (SChannel) is a Security Support Provider that implements the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and the Transport Layer Security (TLS) authentication protocols. An error in the SChannel when using certificate based authentication can allow an attacker to bypass security mechanisms of a SSL protected server with only the public key component of a certificate, and no associated private key. An attacker would need to get the public component of an actual certificate. In most cases like an SSL connection to an Internet Information Services (IIS) web server the certificates are used for only one purpose and they are not in clear text. In cases where a single certificate might be used for multiple purposes the public key might be in the clear. This issue also applies to cases where the certificates are mapped to the local Windows accounts on the server. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: IBM Tivoli Storage Manager HSM for Windows is used for automatic migration of rarely used files thereby controlling the disk storage. This has a buffer overflow vulnerability caused due to unspecified boundary errors in the client. Successful Exploitation can lead to either an arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the user running the application or a denial-of-service condition. Technical details are not publicly available for this vulnerability.
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 6633 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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