TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

Microsoft Windows Media Player Codec Retrieval Dangling Pointer Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI-10-070: April 13th, 2010

CVE ID

CVSS Score

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 9665. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Microsoft Windows Media Player. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious web page.

The specific flaw exists within the functionality for retrieving a codec for an unknown fourCC compression code. If an embedded Windows Media Player control attempts to play a media file containing an unknown codec it makes a request to Microsoft to retrieve the necessary capability. If the control is removed from the page while attempting to do this, cleanup routines will call an already freed pointer. An attacker can leverage this to execute arbitrary code under the context of the user running the browser.

Vendor Response

Microsoft has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:

Disclosure Timeline

    2009-12-04 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2010-04-13 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Anonymous