iDefense Security Advisory 03.04.10
http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/
Mar 04, 2010

I. BACKGROUND

Autonomy KeyView SDK is a commercial SDK that provides many file format
parsing libraries. It supports a large number of different document
formats. KeyView is used by several popular vendors for processing
documents. For more information, visit the URLs referenced below.

http://www.autonomy.com/

II. DESCRIPTION

Remote exploitation of an integer overflow vulnerability in Autonomy's
KeyView Filter SDK allows attackers to execute arbitrary code with the
privileges of the targeted application.

This vulnerability occurs when processing specially crafted documents.
When processing such a document, the software reads an integer value
from the file and uses this integer, without validation, in an
arithmetic operation to calculate the amount of memory to allocate. If
a sufficiently large number is supplied, the calculation overflows,
resulting in a buffer of insufficient size being allocated. The
software then proceeds to copy data into this under-sized buffer. This
results in an exploitable heap buffer overflow condition.

III. ANALYSIS

Exploitation of this vulnerability results in the execution of arbitrary
code with the privileges of the targeted application. In order to
exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must cause a specially crafted
OLE file to be processed by an application using the Autonomy KeyView
SDK. This includes file types such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word, as well
as other document formats.

The amount of user interaction required is tied to the way in which the
KeyView SDK is used. In cases such as Lotus Notes, this requires that
an attacker convince a user to view an e-mail attachment; however, in
other cases, processing may take place automatically as a document is
examined.

The privileges that an attacker gains may be different for each
application that uses the KeyView SDK. For example, exploiting this
issue via Lotus Notes yields the current user's privileges while
exploiting the vulnerability via Symantec Mail Security yields SYSTEM
privileges.

IV. DETECTION

iDefense confirmed the existence of this vulnerability using the
following versions of the affected software:

  kvolefio.dll version 8.5.0.8339, distributed with IBM Lotus Notes 8.5
  kvolefio.dll version 10.5.0.0, distributed with Symantec Mail Security
for Microsoft Exchange

All versions of the KeyView SDK that include the "kvolefio.dll" library
are suspected to be vulnerable. All applications that utilize
Autonomy's KeyView SDK to process untrusted content are also believed
to be vulnerable. A full list of vulnerable Symantec products can be
found in Symantec Security Advisory SYM10-006.

V. WORKAROUND

For Symantec Mail Security, disabling "content filtering" will prevent
exploitation.

Unfortunately, disabling the affected "kvolefio.dll" library causes
additional issues. Working around this issue by disabling filters would
require all filters that utilize this module to be disabled. It is not
clear at this time if this is even possible. iDefense will update this
workaround once more information has been received from the vendor(s).

VI. VENDOR RESPONSE

Symantec Corporation has released a solution which addresses this issue.
Information about downloadable vendor updates can be found by clicking
on the URLs shown.
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/securityupdates/detail.jsp?fid=security_advisory&pvid=security_advisory&year=2010&suid=20100304_00

VII. CVE INFORMATION

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the
name CVE-2009-3032 to this issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in
the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org/), which standardizes names for
security problems.

VIII. DISCLOSURE TIMELINE

09/28/2009  Initial Vendor Notification
09/28/2009  Initial Vendor Reply
03/04/2010  Coordinated Public Disclosure

IX. CREDIT

This vulnerability was discovered by Joshua J. Drake of iDefense Labs.

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X. LEGAL NOTICES

Copyright © 2010 iDefense, Inc.

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Disclaimer: The information in the advisory is believed to be accurate
at the time of publishing based on currently available information. Use
of the information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition.
 There are no warranties with regard to this information. Neither the
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