[VulnWatch] [EEYEB-20080824] Internet Explorer Compressed Content URL Heap Overflow Vulnerability #2

From: eEye Advisories (Advisories@private)
Date: Tue Sep 12 2006 - 15:28:12 PDT


Internet Explorer Compressed Content URL Heap Overflow Vulnerability #2

http://research.eeye.com/html/advisories/published/AD20060912.html

 

Release Date:

September 12, 2006

 

Date Reported:

August 24, 2006

 

Severity:

High (Code Execution)

 

Systems Affected:

Internet Explorer 5 SP4 with MS06-042 - Windows 2000

Internet Explorer 6 SP1 with MS06-042 v1 or v2 - Windows 2000

Internet Explorer 6 SP1 with MS06-042 v1 or v2 - Windows XP SP1

Internet Explorer 6 SP1 with MS06-042 v1 or v2 - Windows Server 2003 SP0

 

Overview:

eEye Digital Security has discovered a second heap overflow
vulnerability in the MS06-042 cumulative Internet Explorer update that
would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system of a
victim who attempts to access a malicious URL.  Windows 2000, Windows XP
SP1, and Windows 2003 SP0 systems running Internet Explorer 5 SP4 or
Internet Explorer 6 SP1, with the MS06-042 patch applied, are
vulnerable; unpatched and more recent versions of Internet Explorer are
not affected.

 

This heap overflow is almost identical to the previous vulnerability
reported by eEye and addressed in the August 24th re-release ("v2") of
MS06-042.  In this case, the heap overflow occurs when URLMON.DLL
attempts to handle a long URL for which the web server's response
indicated GZIP or deflate encoding, if that URL was returned as the
destination of an HTTP redirect (e.g., "302 Found").  This means that
the user interaction requirement for this attack is negligible, since
clicking a hyperlink, visiting a malicious web page, or even attempting
to view an image for which the source is a malicious URL, permits
exploitation of the vulnerability.  

 

Technical Details:

URLMON.DLL versions 5.0.3841.2400, 6.0.2800.1565, and 6.0.2800.1567,
distributed with the MS06-042 patches for Internet Explorer 5 SP4 and
Internet Explorer 6 SP1 on Windows 2000, Windows XP SP1, and Windows
2003 SP0, contain a heap buffer overflow vulnerability due to an
incongruous use of lstrcpynA.  CMimeFt::Create allocates a 390h-byte
heap block for a new instance of the CMimeFt class, within which there
is a 104h (MAX_PATH)-byte ASCII string buffer at offset +160h:

 

    1A4267F8    push    390h            ; cb

    1A4267FD    call    ??2@YAPAXI@Z    ; operator new(uint)

 

When an access to a URL elicits an HTTP redirect (statuses 300 through
303) from the web server, and the subsequent access to the "Location"
URL returns a GZIP- or deflate-encoded response, CMimeFt::ReportProgress
will attempt to copy the URL into the 104h-byte string buffer using the
lstrcpynA API function, but it passes a maximum length argument of 824h
(2084 decimal), a value typically used as the maximum length of a URL:

 

    1A425D41    push    824h            ; iMaxLength

    1A425D46    push    eax             ; lpString2

    1A425D47    add     esi, 15Ch

    1A425D4C    push    esi             ; lpString1

    1A425D4D    call    ds:lstrcpynA

 

As a result, fields within the CMimeFt class instance, as well as the
contents of adjacent heap blocks, can be overwritten with
attacker-supplied data from the malicious URL.

 

Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1 are not susceptible because the
URLMON.DLLs included in the MS06-042 patches for those systems use 824h
both as the field size and as the copy length limit, in all the relevant
locations in the code.  The QFE branches of MS06-042 even for the
above-mentioned vulnerable versions of Windows and Internet Explorer are
not susceptible for the same reason; it is unclear why this fix was
repeatedly re-implemented, in many cases incorrectly, when proper
implementations have existed since August 8th.

 

Protection:

Retina Network Security Scanner has been updated to identify this
vulnerability.

 

Vendor Status:

Microsoft has released a third version of the MS06-042 patch to correct
this vulnerability. The revised patch is available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS06-042.mspx.

 

Note that installing the original release or first re-release of the
MS06-042 update causes a system to become vulnerable, so applying the
version 3.0 release of the MS06-042 patch will then be necessary in
order to secure that system.

 

Systems with the QFE version of the MS06-042 v1 or MS06-042 v2 /
KB923762 hotfix applied are not susceptible to this vulnerability,
although the MS06-042 v3.0 patch should still be installed on these
systems.  (Note that the QFE DLL is only selected in specific, rare
circumstances, so most likely applying MS06-042 v1 or v2 will deploy the
vulnerable GDR-branch DLL instead.)

 

Credit:

Derek Soeder

 

Related Links:

Retina Network Security Scanner -
(http://www.eeye.com/html/products/retina/index.html)

Blink Endpoint Vulnerability Prevention -
(http://www.eeye.com/html/products/blink/index.html)

 

Greetings:

Eric B. for discovering and contributing the premier.microsoft.com
proof-of-concept URL.  3x charm.

 

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