Publish-It 3.6d - Buffer Overflow

Core Security - Corelabs Advisory

http://corelabs.coresecurity.com/



Publish-It Buffer Overflow Vulnerability





1. *Advisory Information*



Title: Publish-It Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Advisory ID: CORE-2014-0001

Advisory URL:

http://www.coresecurity.com/advisories/publish-it-buffer-overflow-vulnerability

Date published: 2014-02-05

Date of last update: 2014-02-05

Vendors contacted: Poster Software

Release mode: User release





2. *Vulnerability Information*



Class: Buffer overflow [CWE-119]

Impact: Code execution

Remotely Exploitable: No

Locally Exploitable: Yes

CVE Name: CVE-2014-0980





3. *Vulnerability Description*



Publish-It [1] is prone to a (client side) security vulnerability when

processing .PUI files. This vulnerability could be exploited by a remote

attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target machine, by enticing

the user of Publish-It to open a specially crafted .PUI file.

 



4. *Vulnerable Packages*



 . Publish-It v3.6d for Win XP.

 . Publish-It v3.6d for Win 7.

 . Other versions are probably affected too, but they were not checked.



 

5. *Vendor Information, Solutions and Workarounds*



There was no official answer from vendor after several attempts to

report this vulnerability (see [Sec. 8]). As mitigation action, given

that this is a client-side vulnerability, avoid to open untrusted .PUI

files. Contact vendor for further information.

 

 

6. *Credits*



This vulnerability was discovered and researched by Daniel Kazimirow

from Core Exploit Writers Team.





7. *Technical Description / Proof of Concept Code*



Below is shown the result of opening the Proof of concept file [2] on

Windows XP SP3 (EN).

    

/-----

EAX 04040404

ECX 00000325

EDX FFFFFF99

EBX 77F15B70 GDI32.SelectObject

ESP 0012F5D4

EBP 77F161C1 GDI32.GetStockObject

ESI 0103A1E8

EDI A50107D3

EIP 04040404

C 0  ES 0023 32bit 0(FFFFFFFF)

P 0  CS 001B 32bit 0(FFFFFFFF)

A 1  SS 0023 32bit 0(FFFFFFFF)

Z 0  DS 0023 32bit 0(FFFFFFFF)

S 0  FS 003B 32bit 7FFDF000(FFF)

T 0  GS 0000 NULL

D 0

O 0  LastErr ERROR_SUCCESS (00000000)

EFL 00000212 (NO,NB,NE,A,NS,PO,GE,G)

ST0 empty -??? FFFF 00000001 00010002

ST1 empty -??? FFFF 00000043 004F007A

ST2 empty -??? FFFF 7590A3E7 FDBDC8F2

ST3 empty -??? FFFF 00000043 0050007B

ST4 empty 1.0000000000000000000

ST5 empty -9.2233720368547758080e+18

-----/



The arbitrary value 0x04040404 is stored in the EIP register where our

shellcode starts (just a software breakpoint 0xCC):

 

/-----

04040404    CC              INT3

04040405    CC              INT3

04040406    CC              INT3

04040407    CC              INT3

04040408    CC              INT3

04040409    CC              INT3

0404040A    CC              INT3

0404040B    CC              INT3

...

-----/



As a result, the normal execution flow can be altered in order to

execute arbitrary code.





8. *Report Timeline*



. 2013-12-20:

Core Security Technologies attempts to contact vendor. Publication date

is set for Jan 21st, 2014.

     

. 2014-01-06:

Core attempts to contact vendor.

      

. 2014-01-15:

Core asks for confirmation of the initial contact e-mail.

     

. 2014-01-15:

Vendor sends an e-mail with a single word: "Confirmed".

      

. 2014-01-16:

Core sends a technical description and asks for an estimated release

date. No reply received.

      

. 2014-01-21:

First release date missed.

    

. 2014-01-27:

Core attempts to contact vendor. No reply received.

      

. 2014-02-05:

After one month and a half trying to contact vendor the only reply from

them was the word "Confirmed" and the advisory CORE-2014-0001 is

published as 'User release'.

      



9. *References*



[1] http://www.postersw.com/.    

[2]

http://www.coresecurity.com/system/files/attachments/2014/02/CORE-2014-0001-publish-it.zip

https://github.com/offensive-security/exploit-database-bin-sploits/raw/master/sploits/31461.zip





10. *About CoreLabs*



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with anticipating the future needs and requirements for information

security technologies. We conduct our research in several important

areas of computer security including system vulnerabilities, cyber

attack planning and simulation, source code auditing, and cryptography.

Our results include problem formalization, identification of

vulnerabilities, novel solutions and prototypes for new technologies.

CoreLabs regularly publishes security advisories, technical papers,

project information and shared software tools for public use at:

http://corelabs.coresecurity.com.





11. *About Core Security Technologies*



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12. *Disclaimer*



The contents of this advisory are copyright (c) 2014 Core Security

Technologies and (c) 2014 CoreLabs, and are licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 (United States)

License:      http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/





13. *PGP/GPG Keys*



This advisory has been signed with the GPG key of Core Security

Technologies advisories team, which is available for download at

http://www.coresecurity.com/files/attachments/core_security_advisories.asc.