Big week! Six very important new vulnerabilities - four in Microsoft Windows including one in Wireless LAN, one in Apple QuickTime and one in Windows Jscript. Both the QuickTime problem and some of the Windows problems mean that systems can be compromised upon browsing to a malicious webpage without any user interaction. Remember, even if Windows is patched automatically, QuickTime (on Windows 7, Vista and XP SP3) may not be. 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: A vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Windows that might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability is caused by to error in DHTML Editing Component ActiveX Control, a software bundle used to provide dynamic HTML editing capabilities and made available as an ActiveX control. Specially crafted web pages, when viewed with Internet Explorer, might instantiate this ActiveX control and exploit this vulnerability to allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the application using the ActiveX control. The users will have to be tricked into visiting the website that hosts such a web page, typically by persuading them to click on the links in e-mail messages or Instant Messenger messages. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: A memory corruption vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability is caused by an error in the way JScript Scripting engine "JScript.dll" processes scripts in web pages. JScript is Microsoft's implementation of ECMAScript (commonly known as JavaScript), a scripting language that can run only in the presence of Internet Explorer, ASP, or Windows Script Host. The specific flaw is in JScript Scripting Engine's parsing the "arguments" keyword. A specially crafted web page when viewed with Internet Explorer can be used to trigger this vulnerability. Successful exploitation might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged on user. The users will have to be tricked into visiting the website that hosts such a web page, typically by persuading them to click on the links in e-mail messages or Instant Messenger messages. Some technical details are publicly available for this vulnerability.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows Media Format Runtime, a software package that helps applications, including Windows Media Player, to play Windows Media content, has been found to have two critical vulnerabilities. The first is an Invalid Free vulnerability caused by an error in the processing of Advanced Systems Format (ASF) files with malformed headers. A specially crafted ASF file or a web site that delivers specially crafted streaming content can be used to trigger this vulnerability. The second is a memory corruption vulnerability in the Windows component that handles MP3 files, caused by an error in the processing of MP3 meta-data. A specially crafted MP3 file or a web site that delivers a specially crafted streaming content can be used to trigger this vulnerability. Successful exploitation in both cases might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged on user. Some technical details are publicly available for some of the vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Multiple Vulnerabilities have been identified in Microsoft Windows TCP/IP stack. The first is a denial of service vulnerability caused by improper handling of excessive numbers of established TCP connections. If an attacker could manipulate the size of the TCP receive window to a small or zero value the effects of the exploit would be greater. The second is a remote code execution vulnerability caused by Windows TCP/IP stack not cleaning up state information correctly thereby resulting in invalid reference of a field as a function pointer. The third issue is a denial of service vulnerability caused due to TCP/IP stack allowing the connections to hang indefinitely in the FIN-WAIT-1 or FIN-WAIT-2 state. Some technical details for some of these vulnerabilities are publicly available.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Multiple vulnerabilities have been identified in Apple QuickTime, a widely used media player. The first issue is a memory corruption issue caused due to an error in handling H.264 movie files. A specially crafted H.264 movie file can be used to trigger this flaw. The second issue is a boundary error while handling MPEG-4 video files. A specially crafted MPEG-4 file can be used to trigger this flaw. The third issue is a heap-based buffer overflow caused due to errors in handling FlashPix files. A specially crafted FlashPix file may be used to trigger this vulnerability. The last issue is yet another heap-based buffer overflow caused due to improper handling of H.264 movie files. Note that systems using QuickTime as the default media player can be compromised upon browsing to a malicious webpage without any user interaction.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Microsoft Windows Wireless LAN Autoconfig Service (Wlansvc), a service used to configure wireless connectivity settings and security, has been found to have a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability. The issue is caused by inadequate validation of malformed frames received on a wireless network. A wireless transmitter that transmits specially crafted frame can be used to trigger this vulnerability provided the wireless network interface is enabled. Successful exploitation might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the logged on user. Technical details for this vulnerability are not available.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: A vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB) implementation. The issue is an out-of-bounds indexing error caused due to the way "Smb2ValidateProviderCallback()" function within the SRV2.SYS kernel driver handles malformed SMB negotiation requests. A specially crafted SMB request with Negotiate Protocol Request might trigger this vulnerability. Successful exploitation might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code while unsuccessful attempts might lead to denial-of-service condition. Full technical details for the vulnerability are publicly available along with proof-of-concept.
Status: Vendor confirmed, no updates available.
Description: Mozilla has reported multiple vulnerabilities, with severity ranging from URL spoofing to privilege escalation to arbitrary code execution, in its popular web browser Firefox. The first issue is memory corruption errors in the browser and JavaScript engines which might lead to arbitrary code execution. The second issue is lack of enough information in the warning dialog display while adding or removing "pkcs11.addmodule" or "pkcs11.deletemodule" which might allow an attacker to affect the cryptographic integrity of the browser. The third issue is a dangling pointer vulnerability caused through the manipulation of columns of a XUL tree element, and allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or crash the browser. The fourth issue is a location bar spoofing error caused due to default Windows font used in location bar improperly displaying certain Unicode characters with tall line-height. The fifth issue is a privilege escalation error caused due to FeedWriter improperly handling of JavaScript code. Technical details for these vulnerabilities is available via source code analysis.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: VMware Workstation is VMware's popular virtualization product. VMware Workstation movie decoder that is either installed by default or downloaded as a separate package contains VMnc media codec, used for the purpose of play back. Two heap-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities have been identified in VMnc codec which can be triggered by a specially crafted video file. The first issue is caused due to a boundary error in the VMnc codec (vmnc.dll) and a video file with mismatched dimensions can be used to exploit this vulnerability. The second issue is heap memory corruption and is caused due to an error in the way VMnc codec handles video content that has a height below eight pixels. Successful exploitation in both cases might allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. An attacker will have to entice the user into opening a malformed video file; either by sending the malicious file as an e-mail attachment or by sending a link, which hosts such a malformed AVI file, in an e-mail message.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Description: Adobe RoboHelp Server is a popular help authoring tool, and is used for developing, managing and deploying online help systems for desktop and web applications. This application running Windows platform, has been identified with a vulnerability which might allow an attacker in uploading and executing arbitrary code. No authentication is required to carry out this exploit. No Technical details have been provided for the vulnerability. And no updates or workarounds have been provided by the vendor.
Status: Vendor confirmed, no updates available.
Description: The Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch contain multiple vulnerabilities in their handling of a variety of inputs. The vulnerabilities include heap-based buffer overflows, sensitive information disclosure, cross-site scripting bugs, spoofing errors, and potential denial-of-service errors. An attacker with physical access to a vulnerable device might be able to exploit most of these vulnerabilities. Some of the vulnerabilities if successfully exploited might allow an attacker execute arbitrary code. Some technical details are publicly available for these vulnerabilities.
Status: Vendor confirmed, updates available.
Vulnerabilities from Qualys (www.qualys.com <http://www.qualys.com> <http://www.qualys.com>) 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 7433 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
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