Apple QuickTime STSD Atom Heap Overflow Release Date:
January 10, 2006

Date Reported:
November 17, 2005

Patch Development Time (In Days):

	54

Severity:
High (Remote Code Execution)

Vendor:
Apple

Systems Affected:
Quicktime on Windows 2000
Quicktime on Windows XP
Quicktime on Mac OS X 10.3.9

Apple iTunes on Windows 2000
Apple iTunes on Windows XP
Apple iTunes on OS X 10.3.9

Overview:
eEye Digital Security has discovered a critical vulnerability in QuickTime Player. The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to reliably overwrite heap memory with user-controlled data and execute arbitrary code in the context of the user who executed the player or application hosting the QuickTime plug-in.

This specific flaw exists within the QuickTime.qts file which many applications access QuickTime's functionality through. By specially crafting atoms within a movie file, a direct heap overwrite is triggered, and reliable code execution is then possible.

Technical Details:
Technical Description:
The code in QuickTime.qts responsible for the size of the Sample Description Table entries from the 'stsd' atom in a QuickTime-format movie on the heap. According to developer.apple.com, the format of the Sample Description Atom is as follows:

Field Description
-----------------------------------------------------------
Size 32-bit int
Data Format 4 char code
Reserved 6 bytes that must be 0
Data Reference Index 16-bit int
Hint Track Version 16-bit unsigned int
Last compatible hint track version 16-bit unsigned int
Max Packet Size 32-bit int
Additional Data Table Variable

By setting the size of the Sample Description Table to a size of 00 15 - 00 D0 will cause a heap-based overflow. By supplying the "Last compatible hint track version" field with the value of 00 05 - 00 09, an insufficiently-sized heap block will be allocated, resulting in a classic complete heap memory overwrite
during the RtlAllocateHeap() function and the attacker can control memory with data taken from the filename of the .MOV file. This vulnerability can be successfully exploited via an embedded media player in an HTML page, email, or HTML link.

References:
QuickTime: QuickTime File Format
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QTFF/index.html

Protection:
Retina Network Security Scanner has been updated to identify this vulnerability.
Blink - Endpoint Vulnerability Prevention - preemptively protects from this vulnerability.

Vendor Status:
Apple has released a patch for this vulnerability. The patch is available via the Updates section of the affected applications.
This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2005-4092.

Credit:
Discovery: Karl Lynn

Related Links:
Retina Network Security Scanner - Free Trial
Blink Endpoint Vulnerability Prevention - Free Trial

Greetings:
0x41414141

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