TPTI-08-03: Microsoft Excel Rich Text Memory Corruption Vulnerability

TPTI-08-03: Microsoft Excel Rich Text Memory Corruption Vulnerability
http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/advisory/TPTI-08-03
March 11, 2008

– CVE ID:
CVE-2008-0116

– Affected Vendors:
Microsoft

– Affected Products:
Microsoft Office Excel 2003
Microsoft Office Excel 2002
Microsoft Office Excel 2000

– TippingPoint(TM) IPS Customer Protection:
TippingPoint IPS customers have been protected against this
vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 6000.
For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS, visit:

 http://www.tippingpoint.com

– 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 tag a heap
allocation can be adversely controlled. When user supplied data is
copied to a heap buffer the resulting data results in a arbitrary memory
overwrite. If successfully exploited this could lead to system
compromise under the credentials of the currently logged in user.

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

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-014.mspx

– Disclosure Timeline:
2007-10-17 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
2008-03-11 - Coordinated public release of advisory

– Credit:
This vulnerability was discovered by:
* Cody Pierce, TippingPoint DVLabs