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Potential Risk of CVE

CVE-2019-6978 – GD Graphics Library gdImage*Ptr() Functions Double Free Vulnerability – Feb 2019

Preface: GD is extensively used with PHP. As of PHP 5.3, a system version of GD may be used as well, to get the additional features that were previously available only to the bundled version of GD.

Technical background: The LibGD 2.2.5 allow to written C code to load an entire image file into a buffer in memory, then ask gd to read the image from that buffer. But the programmer must responsible for allocating the buffer, apart from that a customized function must responsible for freeing the buffer with your normal memory management functions.

Vulnerability found: A vulnerability in GD Graphics Library (libgd) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a targeted system.

Doubt: Similar vulnerability was found on 2017 (Double-free in gdImagePngPtr(). (CVE-2017-6362)).
LibGD 2.2.5 release announced that Double-free in gdImagePngPtr(). (CVE-2017-6362) has been fixed!

Vendor announcements: https://github.com/libgd/libgd/issues/492

Potential Risk of CVE

Apple Releases Multiple Security Updates – 7th Feb 2019

Preface: Apple found memory vulnerability, since no additional information will be provided by vendor.
Does it relate to DUI (Dereference Under the Influence)?

What is DUI?
Attackers use the DUI vulnerability as a memory access service to mount attacks. Their aim to influence memory operations of isolated components through inputs to their public interface.

Apple Releases Multiple Security Updates:
Original release date: February 07, 2019

About the security content of iOS 12.1.4 – https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209520

About the security content of macOS Mojave 10.14.3 Supplemental – Update – https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209521

Potential Risk of CVE

The PAN-OS management web interface Vulnerability (CVE-2019-1566) – Jan 2019

Preface: Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users.

Background: A WAF is deployed to protect a specific web application or set of web applications. Generally, the common attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection will be under WAF protection. But in reality, XSS is hard to avoid.

New vulnerability found: Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS is prone to a cross-site scripting vulnerability because it fails to properly sanitize user-supplied input.

The following PAN-OS versions are affected:

PAN-OS 7.1.21 and prior
PAN-OS 8.0.14 and prior
PAN-OS 8.1.5 and prior

Official announcement shown as below: https://securityadvisories.paloaltonetworks.com/Home/Detail/140

2019, IoT, Under our observation

Marvell Avastar wireless SoCs have multiple vulnerabilities – 5th Feb 2019

Preface: The Marvell 88W8897A SoC (System on a Chip) is the industry’s first 802.11ac chip to combine Bluetooth 4.2, mobile MIMO (Multi-input Multi-output), transmit beamforming, and with built-in support for all screen projection technologies.

Technology Background:
Computer design primary focus on memory usage. Even though without an exception in SoC (System on a Chip) design.

Vulnerability found: During Wi-Fi network scans, an overflow condition can be triggered, overwriting certain block pool data structures.

Exploitation of vulnerability: Attacker can exploit ThreadX block pool overflow vulnerability to intercept network traffic or achieve code execution on the host system.

Remedy: Marvell encourages customer to contact their Marvell representative for additional support.

Remark: This vulnerability was post on headline news on mid of January 2019. However we could not found any positive responses announce by vendor.

Potential Risk of CVE

Avahi avahi-daemon vulnerability (CVE-2017-6519) remedy has finally been released!

Preface: Avahi is a free zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) implementation, including a system for multicast DNS/DNS-SD service discovery.

Technical background:
Multicast DNS (mDNS) is a protocol that uses packets similar to unicast DNS except sent over a multicast link to resolve hostnames.

Vulnerability found in Avahi:
The vulnerability exists because the affected software misses link-local checks, causing the multicast DNS (mDNS) protocol to respond to IPv6 unicast queries with source addresses that are not on-link.

Impact: Remote attacker to access sensitive information on a targeted system or conduct DDoS!

Remedy released finally: 22 Dec 2018
https://github.com/lathiat/avahi/commit/e111def44a7df4624a4aa3f85fe98054bffb6b4f

Remark: Happy Lunar New Year. Kung Hei Fat Choi!

IoT, Potential Risk of CVE

The vulnerability of the Internet of Things 4.0 has attracted the interest of the APT Group in the enemy country.

Preface: Maybe this is a trend! If we are going to the next generation world (IoT 4.0). At the same time, the APT Group is also sniffing the cybersecurity loopholes in that place!

Technical background: In business world we understand the function of broker. A similar situation in computer world, we so called gateway vs middle-ware are equivalence to broker. The modern computer world involves multi vendor and multi-environment and therefore we can’t lack of broker. As a result this area become critical.

Security focus – Schneider Electric IIoT Monitor 3.1.38 vulnerabilities (see below).
Remark: The key component of IIoT monitor 3.1.38 is equivalent Magelis iPC ( IIoT monitor 3.1.38 for Magelis iPC on Windows 10 ).
https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Technical+leaflet&p_File_Name=SEVD-2018-354-03-IIoT+Monitor+Security+Notification+-+V1.1.pdf&p_Doc_Ref=SEVD-2018-354-03

Comment: Perhaps these vulnerabilities announce to public on Dec 2018. But I believe that more hidden vulnerabilities will be dig out in future. Stay tuned! Happy Lunar New Year.

Potential Risk of CVE

UTM (all in one) firewall not in good shape! If you are concern cyber security, please forget so called cost effective solution.

Preface: Dynamic memory automatically reclaimed when the garbage collector no longer sees any live reference to it.

Description: A vulnerability in the data acquisition (DAQ) component of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass configured access control policies or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.

Official announcement – https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190123-firepowertds-bypass

My opinion: For memory that is not associated with a Scheme object, we cannot assume the new memory block can be freed by a garbage collection. FirePower run on top of Cisco ASA appliance.See below bug history, eventhough it is Cisco. The design is better to separate the Snort with CISCO ASA!

Potential Risk of CVE

A specially crafted username through phpmyadmin can be used to trigger an SQL injection attack through the designer weakness – 30th Jan 2019

Preface: phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP, intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web.

Description: Phpmyadmin sometimes similar is a gadget. It can help you reset your WordPress password. It seems to be very useful, but this time the vulnerability is equivalent to the Swiss Army Knife, thus breaking your defense mechanism.

Vulnerability detail: An issue was discovered in phpMyAdmin before 4.8.5. A vulnerability was reported where a specially crafted username can be used to trigger a SQL injection attack through the designer feature.

Official reference: https://www.phpmyadmin.net/security/PMASA-2019-2/

Under our observation

Microsoft Exchange 2013 and newer are vulnerable to NTLM relay attacks – 28th Jan 2019

Preface: EWS Push Subscription, you will get notifications as long as you respond to the server and acknowledge that you received the notification.

The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) announcement – 29th Jan 2019: Microsoft Exchange 2013 and newer are vulnerable to NTLM relay attacks

Vulnerability detail: Exchange allows any user to specify a desired URL for Push Subscription, and the server will attempt to send notifications to this URL….. For more detail, please refer to attached diagram for reference.

Remedy:

  1. Disable EWS push/pull subscriptions.
  2. Remove privileges that Exchange has on the domain object.

Technical article for reference: https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/465632/