Vulnerability Note VU#514740

Apple Mac OS X Bom vulnerable to memory corruption via specially crafted ZIP file

An unspecified heap memory corruption vulnerability exists in Bom's compression state handling that can be triggered by a specially crafted ZIP file.

Per Apple, Safari and Mail will automatically open "safe" file types, such as pictures, movies, and archive files, including ZIP files. If the contents of an archive file are also considered safe, then Safari will automatically open the contents after the archive is extracted. As a result, this vulnerability may be exploited by a user simply clicking on a link to a malicious ZIP file.

II. Impact

By convincing a user to open or follow a link to a specially crafted ZIP file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user or cause the affected application to crash.

III. Solution

Apple has addressed this issue in Security Update 2006-004. Refer to Apple's Security Update site for more information.

Disable "Open 'safe' files after downloading"

Disable the option "Open 'safe' files after downloading in Safari," as specified in the Securing Your Web Browser document. This will help prevent automatic exploitation of this and other vulnerabilities. Refer to Apple technical support for disabling the automatic opening of downloaded files by other programs.

Systems Affected

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304063

Credit

Thanks to Apple for reporting this issue. Apple in turn credits Tom Ferris of Security-Protocols.com.

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

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