The Adobe Flash Player is a player for the Flash media format and enables frame-based animations and multimedia to be viewed within a web browser. There are reports of a critical vulnerability affecting current versions of Adobe Flash and evidence of it being exploited in the wild. Versions prior to 9.0.124.0 are reported to be at risk.
Cisco has obtained exploit files and has confirmed that Cisco® Security Agent is effective in stopping this exploit using the default security policy configuration.
Details of the Adobe Flash Player Vulnerability
Adobe Flash Player is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, caused by an integer overflow vulnerability in the processing of multimedia files. By creating a specially crafted multimedia file and persuading the victim to open the file, a remote attacker could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system.
The integer overflow vulnerability is detailed in CVE-2007-00711. An attacker may be able to trigger this overflow by convincing a user to open a specially crafted SWF file. The SWF file could be hosted or imbedded in a webpage.
How Cisco Security Agent Stops the Exploit
Cisco Security Agent default policies contain multiple rules that stop the exploit from doing any damage. No changes to the Cisco Security Agent binaries or default configuration are required to get this protection. The following actions have been observed being blocked by Cisco Security Agent running the default security policies:
• An attempt to invoke a system function from a buffer
• An attempt to modify memory owned by the process C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe
• An attempt to establish a client connection over the network on TCP Port 80
The testing is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Cisco Security Agent Default Configuration Stops the Adobe Flash Vulnerability Exploit (Tested on Cisco Security Agent 5.2.0.238 with the Default Desktop Group)
Note: The exploit was tested at Cisco by the Security Intelligence Engineering and Cisco Security Agent teams with the agent in Test mode, which will cause the agent to alert (but not block) malicious behavior. This was done to observe all possible ways that the Cisco Security Agent default policies would stop the exploit. When the agent is in Protect mode (the typical operational configuration), the first rule would kill the exploit: No subsequent events would be seen, since the exploit would be terminated before it could perform any malicious actions.
Testing was performed against the Cisco Security Agent default policies. No binary or policy update was needed for Cisco Security Agents to be effective. In short, this was a true test of "zero-day" protection. This is similar to what Cisco has seen with earlier exploits and worms-the default Cisco Security Agent configuration stopped the exploit, with no binary or policy updates required. The following is a partial list of prior worms and exploits that Cisco Security Agent has stopped using the default security policy settings:
Table 1.
Exploits
Worms
Exploits
Worms
ANI 0Day
OS vulnerability
MyDoom
Email worm
Bagle
Email worm
MS06-035
OS vulnerability
BigYellow
Network worm
MS06-040
OS vulnerability
Blackworm
Network worm
MS06-070
OS vulnerability
Blaster
Network worm
MS07-014
Application vulnerabilities
Bugbear
Email worm
Excel hlink dll
Application vulnerability
Code Red
Network worm
MS RDS ActiveX
OS vulnerability
Debploit
Network worm
MS XML Core Svs
OS vulnerability
DNS 0Day
OS vulnerability
Nimda
Network worm
Fizzer
Email worm
Pentagone/Gonner
Email worm
Gator/Gain
Spyware
Sasser
Network worm
Hotbar
Spyware
Sircam
Email worm
HTTP Dir Traversal
Web server vulnerability
Sobig
Email worm
IE Text Range
Application vulnerability
Storm Trojan
Email worm
IE VML BO
Application vulnerability
WMF 0day
OS vulnerability
SQL Slammer
Network worm
Word BO
Application vulnerability
SQL Snake
Network worm
W32.Rinbot.H
Network worm
JPEG/GDI+
Malware downloader
Zotob
Network worm
This exploit is only the latest example of new and mutating attacks that can seriously affect an organization's computing and network environments. The key to stopping these new attacks is two-fold: the ability to stop the attack without requiring any changes to the default configuration, and multiple rules in the default policies that provide defense in depth.
