The quiet time is over. Oracle, Blackberry Enterprise Server and Windows users all have critical vulnerabilities to deal with 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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1) Take part in the SANS 5th Annual Log Management Survey: A Leading Source for Actionable Data on Key Issues and Trends. http://www.sans.org/ info/37128"> http://www.sans.org/ info/37128
2) Visit the SANS Vendor Demo resource page to see the latest INFOSEC products & solutions in action! http://www.sans.org/ info/37133"> http://www.sans.org/ info/37133
3) "Compliance" does not mean "Secure". Is your organization maximizing vulnerability management to maintain compliance standards? Listen to this popular SANS webcast on emerging VM trends featuring David Hoelzer. http://www.sans.org/ info/37138"> http://www.sans.org/ info/37138
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TRAINING UPDATE - - SANS 2009 in Orlando in early march - the largest security training conference and expo in the world. lots of evening sessions: http://www.sans.org/ - - SANS Security West Las Vegas (1/24-2/01) http://sans.org/securitywest09/ - - Looking for training in your own Community? http://sans.org/community/ For a list of all upcoming events, on-line and live: 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: SMB is the Server Message Block protocol. It is the standard protocol for resource, file, and printer sharing in Microsoft Windows installations. Windows contains a flaw in its handling of a variety of SMB messages. A specially crafted message could trigger one of these vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with kernel-level privileges. It is believed that the remote code execution conditions are difficult to achieve, but are theoretically possible. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: The RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the server application that formats and manages messages to RIM BlackBerry handheld systems. Part of its functionality includes parsing of file attachments and formatting them for better viewing on handheld devices. The Enterprise Server contains multiple vulnerabilities in its handling of PDF attachments. A specially crafted PDF could trigger one of these vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process (usually SYSTEM). Some user interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that a user must explicitly view the malicious attachment on a BlackBerry device. Technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Oracle has released its Critical Patch Update for January of 2009. Multiple products contain various vulnerabilities, with some products suffering from remote, unauthenticated command or code execution vulnerabilities. Proofs-of-concept are publicly available for the vulnerabilities present in Oracle TimesTen and Oracle Secure Backup. Technical details are publicly available for other vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: The Office Viewer ActiveX Controls (OCX) are a collection of ActiveX controls that allow users to edit and view Microsoft Office files from within a web browser. These controls contain multiple vulnerabilities in their handling of a variety of method calls. A specially crafted web page that instantiated one of these controls could trigger one of these vulnerabilities, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Multiple proofs-of-concept are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor has not confirmed, no updates available. Users can mitigate the impact of these vulnerabilities by disabling the affected controls via Microsoft's "kill bit" mechanism. Note that this will affect normal application functionality.
Description: NullSoft Winamp is a popular media play for Microsoft Windows. It contains flaws in its parsing of MP3 and Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) files. A specially crafted MP3 or AIFF file could trigger one of these flaws, leading to a buffer overflow condition. Successfully exploiting one of these buffer overflows would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Depending upon configuration, a malicious file may be opened upon receipt by the vulnerable application. A proof-of-concept for these vulnerabilities is publicly available.
Status: Vendor has not confirmed, no updates available.
Description: Compiled HTML (CHM) is a document format used most commonly for help files on Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Windows XP SP3 contains a flaw in its parsing of these files. A specially crafted CHM file could trigger a buffer overflow, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. Depending upon configuration, the malicious file may be opened by the vulnerable application upon receipt. A proof-of-concept is publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor 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.
(c) 2009. 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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