TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

Apple QuickTime sean Atom Size Parsing Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI-12-153: August 22nd, 2012

CVE ID

CVSS Score

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 12490. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details


This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Apple QuickTime. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious page or open a malicious file.

The specific flaw exists within Quicktime.qts when parsing the 'sean' atom. The size specified in the atom's header is added to 0x0C and subsequently allocated. File data is then copied into that buffer along with a series of nulls. If the buffer is undersized, the copy operation can be made to corrupt adjacent memory. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code under the context of the process.

Vendor Response

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

Disclosure Timeline

    2012-01-24 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2012-08-22 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Tom Gallagher (Microsoft) & Paul Bates (Microsoft)