Advisory Details

March 11th, 2008

Microsoft Excel BIFF File Format Cell Record Parsing Memory Corruption Vulnerability

ZDI-08-008
ZDI-CAN-195

CVE ID CVE-2008-0113
CVSS SCORE
AFFECTED VENDORS Microsoft
AFFECTED PRODUCTS Office Excel Viewer
TREND MICRO CUSTOMER PROTECTION Trend Micro TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID ['5338']. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS: http://www.tippingpoint.com
VULNERABILITY DETAILS

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

The specific flaw exists within the parsing of malformed cell comments. When Excel encounters a malformed record it attempts to rebuild the broken meta-data. A flaw in this rebuilding process allows the user to specify critical data offsets eventually leading to code execution under the logged in users credentials.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS Microsoft has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-016.mspx
DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
  • 2007-05-22 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
  • 2008-03-11 - Coordinated public release of advisory
CREDIT Arnaud Dovi - ad@heapoverflow.com
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