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HistoryNov 10, 2010 - 12:00 a.m.

ASPR #2010-11-10-3: Remote Binary Planting in Microsoft Excel 2010

2010-11-1000:00:00
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PUBLIC

=========================================================================
ACROS Security Problem Report #2010-11-10-3

ASPR #2010-11-10-3: Remote Binary Planting in Microsoft Excel 2010

Document ID: ASPR #2010-11-10-3-PUB
Vendor: Microsoft Corp. (http://www.microsoft.com)
Target: Microsoft Excel 2010 for Windows
Impact: Remote execution of arbitrary code
Severity: Very high
Status: Official patch available, workarounds available
Discovered by: Simon Raner of ACROS Security

CVSS score: 9.3 (HIGH) (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)
CVE ID: CVE-2010-3337
CWE ID: CWE-426: Untrusted Search Path

Current version
http://www.acrossecurity.com/aspr/ASPR-2010-11-10-3-PUB.txt

Summary

A "binary planting" [1] vulnerability in Microsoft Excel 2010 for Windows
allows local or remote (even Internet-based) attackers to deploy and
execute malicious code on Windows machines in the context of logged-on
users.

Product Coverage

  • Microsoft Excel 2010 for Windows

Analysis

Note: A more detailed analysis of this bug is available at
http://blog.acrossecurity.com/2010/11/analysis-of-microsoft-office-
2010.html (http://bit.ly/9KNXmv).

As a result of an incorrect dynamic link library loading in Microsoft Excel
2010 for Windows, an attacker can cause her malicious DLL to be loaded and
executed from local drives, remote Windows shares, and even shares located
on Internet.

All a remote attacker has to do is plant a malicious DLL with a specific
name (xlimpconv.dll) on a network share and get the user to open a
specially crafted XLSX file from this network location - which should
require minimal social engineering. Once the user opens the file, Office's
library mso.dll makes an unsafe call to LoadLibrary("xlimpconv.dll"). As
this DLL is not present on the system, its malicious version gets loaded
from the current working directory.

Windows systems by default have the Web Client service running - which
makes remote network shares accessible via WebDAV -, thus the malicious
DLL can also be deployed from an Internet-based network share as long as
the intermediate firewalls allow outbound HTTP traffic to the Internet.

A systematic attack could deploy malicious code to a large number of
Windows workstations in a short period of time, possibly as an Internet
worm.

Visit http://www.binaryplanting.com/ for more information on binary
planting vulnerabilities and attacks.

Additional details are available to interested corporate and government
customers under NDA, as public disclosure would reveal too many details on
the vulnerability and unduly accelerate malicious exploitation.

Mitigating Factors

  • A firewall blocking outbound WebDAV traffic (in addition to blocking all
    Windows Networking protocols) could stop an Internet-based attack.

  • Microsoft's CWDIllegalInDllSearch hotfix [2] can stop a network-based
    exploitation of this vulnerability.

Solution

Microsoft has issued a security bulletin [3] and published an update for
Microsoft Excel 2010 that fixes this issue.

Workaround

  • Stopping the Web Client service could stop Internet-based attacks as
    long as the network firewall stops outbound Microsoft Networking
    protocols. This would not, however, stop remote LAN-based attacks where
    the attacker is able to place a malicious DLL on a network share inside
    the target (e.g., corporate) network.

  • General recommendations for limiting or stopping binary planting attacks
    are available at
    http://www.binaryplanting.com/guidelinesAdministrators.htm

Related Services

ACROS is offering professional consulting on this issue to interested
corporate and government customers. Typical questions we can help you
answer are:

1) To what extent is your organization affected by this issue?

2) Is it possible to get remote code from the Internet launched inside
your network? Can this be demonstrated?

3) Have you adequately applied the remedies to remove the vulnerability?

4) Are there circumstances in your environment that might prevent the
effectiveness of this fix?

5) Are there other workarounds that you could implement to fix this issue
more efficiently and/or inexpensively?

6) Are your systems or applications vulnerable to other similar issues?

Interested parties are encouraged to ask for more information at
[email protected].

Background

ACROS Security has performed an extensive Binary Planting research
project, focused on various types of vulnerabilities where an attacker
with low privileges can place (i.e., "plant") a malicious executable file
(i.e., "binary") to some possibly remote location and get it launched by
some vulnerable application running on user's computer.

The research found that binary planting vulnerabilities are affecting a
large percentage of Windows applications and often allowing for trivial
exploitation: it identified ~520 remotely exploitable bugs in ~200 widely-
used Windows applications. A large majority of these vulnerabilties
remain unfixed and publicly unknown at the time of this writing.

Find out more:

Follow ACROS Security on Twitter to get immediate updates on the ongoing
Binary Planting research and other research projects.
http://www.twitter.com/AcrosSecurity

References

[1] Binary Planting - The Official Web Site
http://www.binaryplanting.com/

[2] Microsoft's CWDIllegalInDllSearch hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2264107

[3] Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-087 - Critical
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS10-087.mspx

Contact

ACROS d.o.o.
Makedonska ulica 113
SI - 2000 Maribor

e-mail: [email protected]
web: http://www.acrossecurity.com
phone: +386 2 3000 280
fax: +386 2 3000 282

ACROS Security PGP Key
http://www.acrossecurity.com/pgpkey.asc
[Fingerprint: FE9E 0CFB CE41 36B0 4720 C4F1 38A3 F7DD]

ACROS Security Advisories
http://www.acrossecurity.com/advisories.htm

Disclaimer

The content of this report is purely informational and meant only for the
purpose of education and protection. ACROS d.o.o. shall in no event be
liable for any damage whatsoever, direct or implied, arising from use or
spread of this information. All identifiers (hostnames, IP addresses,
company names, individual names etc.) used in examples and demonstrations
are used only for explanatory purposes and have no connection with any
real host, company or individual. In no event should it be assumed that
use of these names means specific hosts, companies or individuals are
vulnerable to any attacks nor does it mean that they consent to being used
in any vulnerability tests. The use of information in this report is
entirely at user's risk.

Revision History

November 10, 2010: Initial release

Copyright

(c) 2010 ACROS d.o.o. Forwarding and publishing of this document is
permitted providing the content between "[BEGIN-ACROS-REPORT]" and
"[END-ACROS-REPORT]" marks remains unchanged.

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