Nuance OmniPage 16 Professional installs multiple vulnerable Microsoft runtime libraries

Nuance Communications, Inc. offer on their german web page
<http://www.nuance.de/kostenlose-ocr-software-test/download.asp&gt;
a trial version of OmniPage 16 Professional for download.

The installer OPPro16_TD.exe (a self-extracting RAR archive) was
published "Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:38:28 GMT" (according to its HTTP
time stamp), unpacking reveals a BUILD.ID "OP-0861-035-7563.1134"
with time stamp "Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:51:32".

After installation on a fully patched Windows XP with Service Pack 3
the following vulnerable Microsoft runtime libraries are found:

1. %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\GDIPLUS.DLL 5.1.3097 2001-06-15 21:00

   GDIPLUS.DLL has been patched several times since 2001, see
   <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-052.mspx&gt;
   or <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954593/en-us&gt; for the current
   version, 5.1.3102.5581 (XP SP3) or 5.1.3102.3352 (XP SP2).

   MALUS #1:
   since GDIPLUS.DLL is part of the OS in Windows XP and installed
   in its side-by-side cache a 3rd party vendor MUST NOT install a
   GDIPLUS.DLL into the system directory.
   See <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835322/en-us&gt; and
   <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995328.aspx&gt;

   MALUS #2:
   the current version was available when the installer was published!

2. %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\CAPICOM.DLL 2.0.0.1 2003-10-28 12:24

   CAPICOM.DLL has been patched several times since 2003, see
   <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS07-028.mspx&gt;
   or <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931906/en-us&gt; for the current
   version, 2.1.0.2.

   MALUS #1:
   the installer is brain-dead, it overwrites a newer version of
   CAPICOM.DLL if this already exists in %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\!

   MALUS #2:
   the current version was available when the installer was built!

   MALUS #3:
   the installer does not detect a properly installed current
   version of CAPICOM.DLL in its default location
   "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft CAPICOM 2.1.0.2\Lib\X86\CAPICOM.DLL".

   Registration of the older library over the newer one creates a
   mess with the registered interfaces which will lead to arbitrary
   program errors in applications that use interfaces which had
   been registered by the newer CAPICOM.DLL when called after
   interfaces now registered by the older CAPICOM.DLL.

3. %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\MSXML4.DLL 40.10.9404.0 2002-04-02 02:52
   %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\MSXML4R.DLL 40.10.9404.0 2002-04-02 02:43

   This is MSXML 4 Service Pack 1, which has been updated several
   times since 2002, see
   <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-069.mspx&gt;
   or <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954430/en-us&gt; as well as
   <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973685/en-us&gt; for the current
   version, MSXML 4 Service Pack 3.

   MALUS #1:
   the installer is brain-dead, it overwrites newer versions of
   MSXML4*.DLL if these already exist in %SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\!

   MALUS #2:
   although the current version was not available when the installer
   was published, a newer version than included was available when
   the installer was built, see
   <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3144B72B-B4F2-46DA-B4B6-C5D7485F2B42&amp;displaylang=en&gt;

Timeline:

2010-06-07 vendor informed per mail (multiple recipients)

2010-06-08 several automatic delivery receipts

2010-06-16 no human reply; 2nd try, vendor informed again

2010-06-17 human reply, promising to forward to responsible team

2010-06-26 no reaction; disclosure

Who cares about software engineering and the build process at Nuance?
Who cares about security of customer systems at Nuance?

Stefan Kanthak