The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers). An example of a network attack is an attacker causing a denial of service by sending a specially crafted TCP packet across a wide area network (e.g., CVE-2004-0230).
Attack Complexity
Low
AC
The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Privileges Required
None
PR
The attacker is unauthenticated prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
Scope
Unchanged
S
An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In the case of a vulnerability in a virtualized environment, an exploited vulnerability in one guest instance would not affect neighboring guest instances.
Confidentiality
High
C
There is total information disclosure, resulting in all data on the system being revealed to the attacker, or there is a possibility of the attacker gaining control over confidential data.
Integrity
High
I
There is a total compromise of system integrity. There is a complete loss of system protection, resulting in the attacker being able to modify any file on the target system.
Availability
High
A
There is a total shutdown of the affected resource. The attacker can deny access to the system or data, potentially causing significant loss to the organization.
Multiple Vendor xpdf DCTStream Baseline Heap Overflow Vulnerability
iDefense Security Advisory 12.05.05
www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=342&type=vulnerabilities
December 5, 2005
I. BACKGROUND
Xpdf is an open-source viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
II. DESCRIPTION
Local exploitation of a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in
xpdf, as included in various vendors' operating system distributions,
could allow attackers to cause a denial of service condition,
potentially resulting in arbitrary code execution.
The vulnerability specifically exists due to insufficient input
validation in the DCT stream parsing code. The
DCTStream::readBaselineSOF function from xpdf/Stream.cc takes the value
of numComps from user-controllable data from within the PDF file. The
numComps value is used in a loop to copy data from the file into a pre-
allocated buffer in the heap, shown as follows:
GBool DCTStream::readBaselineSOF() {
...
numComps = str->getChar();
...
for (i = 0; i < numComps; ++i) {
compInfo[i].id = str->getChar();
c = str->getChar();
compInfo[i].hSample = (c >> 4) & 0x0f;
compInfo[i].vSample = c & 0x0f;
compInfo[i].quantTable = str->getChar();
}
...
Overly large values supplied to numComps will result in corruption of
heap memory resulting in a DoS condition, potentially resulting in
arbitrary code execution.
III. ANALYSIS
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can result in arbitrary
code execution with privileges of the xpdf process. Currently,
exploitation resulting in code execution is theoretical and dependant
on the process memory layout. A typical exploitation attempt would
require an attacker to supply a malicious .pdf to the victim. The
victim would need to open the corrupt .pdf file in xpdf, triggering the
vulnerability.
IV. DETECTION
iDefense has confirmed the existence of this vulnerability in xpdf
3.01. All earlier versions of xpdf are suspected vulnerable.
The following vendors include susceptible xpdf packages within their
operating system distributions:
. The Debian Project: Linux 3.0 and 3.1
V. WORKAROUND
iDefense is currently unaware of any effective workarounds for this
vulnerability.
VI. VENDOR RESPONSE
A patch for this vulnerability is available at:
ftp://ftp.foolabs.com/pub/xpdf/xpdf-3.01pl1.patch
Updated binaries (version 3.01pl1) are available at:
http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html
VII. CVE INFORMATION
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the
name CAN-2005-3191 to this issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in
the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for
security problems.
VIII. DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
10/13/2005 Initial vendor notification
10/19/2005 Initial vendor response
12/05/2005 Coordinated public disclosure
IX. CREDIT
iDefense credits infamous41md (at) hotpop (dot) com [email concealed] with the discovery of this
vulnerability.
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X. LEGAL NOTICES
Copyright C 2005 iDefense, Inc.
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