====================================================================== 

                     Secunia Research 09/04/2009

       - Ghostscript jbig2dec JBIG2 Processing Buffer Overflow -

====================================================================== 
Table of Contents

Affected Software....................................................1
Severity.............................................................2
Vendor's Description of Software.....................................3
Description of Vulnerability.........................................4
Solution.............................................................5
Time Table...........................................................6
Credits..............................................................7
References...........................................................8
About Secunia........................................................9
Verification........................................................10

====================================================================== 
1) Affected Software 

* Ghostscript version 8.64

NOTE: Other versions may also be affected.

====================================================================== 
2) Severity 

Rating: Highly critical 
Impact: System access
Where:  Remote

====================================================================== 
3) Vendor's Description of Software 

"An interpreter for the PostScript (TM) language, with the ability to 
convert PostScript language files to many raster formats, view them 
on displays, and print them on printers that don't have PostScript 
language capability built in; An interpreter for Portable Document 
Format (PDF) files, with the same abilities; ..."

Product Link:
http://www.ghostscript.com/Ghostscript.html

====================================================================== 
4) Description of Vulnerability

Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in Ghostscript, which 
can be exploited by malicious people to potentially compromise a
user's system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error in the included 
jbig2dec library while decoding JBIG2 symbol dictionary segments. 
This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow via a 
specially crafted PDF file.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

====================================================================== 
5) Solution 

Do not process untrusted PDF files.

====================================================================== 
6) Time Table 

26/03/2009 - Vendor notified.
26/03/2009 - vendor-sec notified.
02/04/2009 - Vendor response.
09/04/2009 - Public disclosure.

====================================================================== 
7) Credits 

Discovered by Alin Rad Pop, Secunia Research.

====================================================================== 
8) References

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned
CVE-2009-0196 for the vulnerability.

====================================================================== 
9) About Secunia

Secunia offers vulnerability management solutions to corporate
customers with verified and reliable vulnerability intelligence
relevant to their specific system configuration:

http://secunia.com/advisories/business_solutions/

Secunia also provides a publicly accessible and comprehensive advisory
database as a service to the security community and private 
individuals, who are interested in or concerned about IT-security.

http://secunia.com/advisories/

Secunia believes that it is important to support the community and to
do active vulnerability research in order to aid improving the 
security and reliability of software in general:

http://secunia.com/secunia_research/

Secunia regularly hires new skilled team members. Check the URL below
to see currently vacant positions:

http://secunia.com/corporate/jobs/

Secunia offers a FREE mailing list called Secunia Security Advisories:

http://secunia.com/advisories/mailing_lists/

====================================================================== 
10) Verification 

Please verify this advisory by visiting the Secunia website:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2009-21/

Complete list of vulnerability reports published by Secunia Research:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/

======================================================================