TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

Microsoft Excel BIFF File Format Named Graph Record Parsing Stack Overflow Vulnerability

ZDI-07-026: May 8th, 2007

CVE ID

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 5330. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Microsoft Office Excel. Exploitation requires that the attacker coerce the target into opening a malicious .XLS file.

The specific flaw exists within the parsing of the BIFF file format used by Microsoft Excel. During the processing of a malformed Named Graph record, user-supplied data may be copied to the stack unchecked thereby leading to an exploitable stack-based buffer overflow.

Vendor Response

Microsoft has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:

Disclosure Timeline

    2006-11-16 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2007-05-08 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Manuel Santamarina Suarez