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New Apple QuickTime Vulnerability Exposed
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-11-26
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A zero-day exploit in Apple's QuickTime software now has accompanying proof of concept code that can affect version 7.3 of the player.
 | | New Apple QuickTime Vulnerability Exposed |  |
The exploit code targeting this flaw forces a buffer overflow in the standalone version of QuickTime 7.3. Once the overflow has been caused, malicious shellcode delivered as part of the exploit executes immediately.
Security firm Symantec noted the latest development in this recently uncovered vulnerability. Though the proof of concept exploit fully impacts the standalone version of QuickTime 7.3, it only causes a browser crash when attacking a QuickTime plugin.
Though that browser crash prevents the exploit from taking place with Internet Explorer versions 6 or 7, or with the Safari 3 Beta from Apple, Firefox users could be in greater peril if QuickTime is default player for multimedia, according to Symantec's Elia Florio.
"It is worth bearing in mind that this attack may also work with other common media formats such as mpeg, .avi, and other MIME types that are associated with the QuickTime player," Florio said.
Currently, Symantec sees the security hole as vulnerable to email and web-based attacks. With email, the recipient would have to double-click an attachment to trigger the attack. The web link scenario is worse. Clicking a malicious link brings in the embedded streaming object, which in turn goes out and downloads exploit code from a remote server.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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