Microsoft Excel Formula Parsing Vulnerability

Overview

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iPolicy Networks Security Advisory


Date Discovered:	03/11/2008
Severity:	High
Applications Affected:	Microsoft Office 2000 SP3 Microsoft Office XP SP3 Microsoft Office 2003 SP2 Microsoft Office 2007 System Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003 Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Synopsis

The vulnerability is caused in the way Excel handles malformed formulas. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a malformed file which could be hosted on a specially crafted or compromised Web site, or included as an e-mail attachment.

Recommended Actions

Update the patches as guided by vendor at :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-014.mspx

Threat Analysis

The vulnerability is caused by a memory calculation error when parsing formula information in a specially crafted Excel file. The error may corrupt system memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code as the logged-on user. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take complete control of the affected system. An attacker could then install programs, view, change, delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights.

References

http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-0115

Write-up by: Aditya Chaturvedi

Security Sites

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