Summary : Buffer overflows in VLC RealText and CUE demuxers
Date : November 2008
Affected versions : VLC media player 0.9.5 down to 0.5.0
ID : VideoLAN-SA-0810
CVE reference : CVE-2008-5032, CVE-2008-5036
Details
When parsing the header of an invalid CUE image file
or an invalid RealText subtitle file,
stack-based buffer overflows might occur.
Impact
If successful,
a malicious third party could trigger execution of arbitrary code
within the context of the VLC media player.
Threat mitigation
Exploitation of this issue 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 remote sites (or disable the VLC browser plugins),
until the patch is applied.
Alternatively, the VCD and Subtitles plugins
(libvcd_plugin.* and libsubtitle_plugin.*)
can be removed manually from the VLC plugin installation directory.
However, this will prevent use of subtitle files
and Video CD altogether.
Solution
VLC media player 0.9.6 addresses this issue.
Patches for older versions are available
from the official VLC source code repository 0.9-bugfix branch.
Credits
These vulnerabilities were reported by Tobias Klein.
