home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- w00w00 (http://www.w00w00.org)
- Angry Packet Security (http://sec.angrypacket.com)
-
- Vulnerability in Multiple Microsoft Products for Mac OS
- HTML format: http://www.w00w00.org/advisories/ms_macos.html
- Text format: http://www.w00w00.org/files/advisories/ms_macos.txt
-
- SOFTWARE VERSIONS AFFECTED
-
- Microsft Internet Explorer
- Versions affected: 5.1
- Platforms affected: Mac OS 8, 9, and X
-
- Microsft Outlook Express
- Versions affected: 5.0.2
- Platforms affected: all Mac OS
-
- Microsft Entourage
- Versions affected: 2001 and X
- Platforms affected: all Mac OS
-
- Microsft PowerPoint
- Versions affected: 98, 2001, and X
- Platforms affected: all Mac OS
-
- Microsft Excel
- Versions affected: 2001 and X
- Platforms affected: all Mac OS
-
- Microsft Word
- Versions affected: 2001
- Platforms affected: all Mac OS
-
- PRELUDE
-
- A bug in Internet Explorer for Mac OS X was originally reported to
- Microsoft by Josha Bronson of Angry Packet Security on January 4,
- 2002.
-
- Due to some internal mishandling at Microsoft, this was brushed off
- until w00w00 informed Microsoft of its intention to release the
- information on February 17. We originally gave them a deadline of
- two weeks until we discovered that this affected Entourage (an
- Outlook-like mail client for Mac OS). When Microsoft determined
- this affected most of their Office suite on Mac OS, we felt it was
- appropriate to give them time to fix it.
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- There is a vulnerability in multiple Microsoft products on Mac OS.
- The problem lies in the handling of a lengthy subdirectory in the
- file:// directive, such as file:///AAAAAA[...] or
- file://A/A/A/A/[...]. The number of subdirectories is trivial as
- long as there is at least one.
-
- IMPLICATIONS
-
- In most cases, the user would need to click on the link to be
- attacked. In the case of Entourage or Outlook Express, however,
- just opening the email will cause this. This leaves the
- potential for a worm. The magnitude depends on how many people
- actually use Entourage and Outlook Express for Mac OS. In all
- cases, writing shellcode to exploit this problem is simple.
- Given that Mac OS X has a Unix interface, existing PowerPC
- shellcode that runs /bin/sh will work. No complex shellcode
- is needed to bind to a port or download an application off the
- web. The /bin/sh shellcode would need to be changed from an
- interactive shell to one that will execute a chain of commands.
- There are enough commands on Mac OS X by default to allow an
- attacker to download and execute an application off of a web
- page. The downloaded application could do any number of
- things, such as read off the user's contact list and send the
- same email to exploit to all of the user's contacts.
-
- EXPLOIT
-
- The following HTML file will demonstrate the problem. We chose to
- use IMG simply because that is instantly loaded, but an
- <A HREF=...> could have been used also. It can also be viewed (in
- live form) at http://www.w00w00.org/files/advisories/ie_sample.html.
- It overwrites the saved link register which is used for a
- subroutine's return address on PowerPC. This will allow remote
- execution of arbitrary code. The saved link register is overwritten
- by the 0x41424344. This vulnerability will allow up to 1313
- characters before the saved link register. Pure binary data
- (including NUL bytes) can be used by escaping it (i.e., A as %41).
- However, using "%41" will count as three characters, rather than
- just one. Note: by character I mean unibyte characters.
-
- <html>
- <body>
- <img src=file:///[1313 characters]%41%42%43%44>
- </body>
- </html>
-
- PATCHES
-
- For Internet Explorer, a patch is available from
- http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/softwareupdates.html. For
- the other products, the patches can be downloaded from
- http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download.
-
- CREDIT
-
- w00w00 would like to thank Angry Packet for involving us in their
- efforts to get Microsoft to resolve this problem after their
- attempts failed.
-