Summary : Arbitrary memory overwrite in the MP4 demuxer
Date : 27 February 2008
Affected versions : VLC media player 0.8.6d and earlier
ID : VideoLAN-SA-0802, CORE-2008-0130
CVE reference : CVE-2008-0984
Details
VLC media player's MPEG-4 file format parser (a.k.a. the MP4 demuxer)
suffers from an arbitrary memory overwrite vulnerability
when using specially crafted (invalid) MP4 input files.
Impact
If successful,
a malicious third party could trigger execution of arbitrary code
within the context of the VLC media player,
or otherwise crash the player instance.
Threat mitigation
Exploitation of the MP4 demuxer problem requires the user
to explicitly open a specially crafted file.
Workarounds
The user should refrain from opening files from untrusted third parties
or accessing untrusted Web sites (or disable the VLC browser plugins),
until the patch is applied.
Solution
VLC media player 0.8.6e addresses these issues
and introduces further usability fixes.
The source code patch can be downloaded separately here:
vlc-0.8.6-CORE-2008-0130.patch.
Pre-compiled packages will be available
at the usual download locations shortly.
Credits
Felipe Manzano and Anibal Sacco from Core Security Technologies
are credited with the discovery of this security issue.
