Apple Mac OS X PDF Ink Annotations Processing Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

April 9th, 2013
ZDI-13-055 ZDI-CAN-1518

CVE ID

CVE-2013-0971

CVSS Score

6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected Vendors

Apple

Affected Products

OS X

Vulnerability Details


This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Apple OS X. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability in that the target must visit a malicious page or open a malicious file.

The specific flaw exists within the parsing of a PDF file. During the processing of a specific InkList array, a reference is created to an object that is freed before use. By abusing this behavior an attacker can ensure this memory is under control and leverage the situation to achieve remote code execution under the context of the user currently logged in.

Additional Details

Apple has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Disclosure Timeline

  • 2012-11-14 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
  • 2013-04-09 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

Tobias Klein

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