Microsoft Excel Indexing Validation Vulnerability

Overview

» IDS/IPS Signatures

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iPolicy Networks Security Advisory


Date Discovered:	08/12/2008
Severity:	High
Applications Affected:	Microsoft Office 2000 SP3 Microsoft Office XP SP3 Microsoft Office 2003 SP2 Microsoft Office 2003 SP3 Microsoft Office System 2007 Microsoft Office System 2007 SP1 Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003 Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003 SP3 Microsoft Office Excel Viewer Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 x64 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 x64 SP1 Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Synopsis

Microsoft Excel is prone to a indexing validation vulnerability. This vulnerability exists in the way Excel processes index values when loading Excel files into memory.

Recommended Actions

Update the patches as guided by vendor at :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-043.mspx

Threat Analysis

Microsoft Excel does not perform sufficient validation of index values when loading Excel files into memory. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by opening a specially crafted file which could be hosted on a Web site, or included as an e-mail attachment. This vulnerability requires that a user open a specially crafted Excel file with an affected version of Microsoft Excel.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an 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-2008-3004

Write-up by: Aditya Chaturvedi

Security Sites

“iPolicy is one of the most visionary firewall vendors in the firewall Magic Quadrant. Its architecture of a central session processing engine and multiple content blades that are able to block based on signatures, rules and so on is the closest to the network security ideal.”

Greg Young, John Pescatore
Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls, 2H04, Gartner

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