Summary : Buffer overflow in PNG decoder
Date : October 2012
Affected versions : VLC media player 2.0.3 and earlier
ID : VideoLAN-SA-1203
CVE reference : CVE-2012-5470
Details
When parsing an invalid PNG image file,
a buffer overflow might occur.
Impact
If successful,
a malicious third party could trigger an invalid memory access,
leading to a crash of the process of the VLC media player.
Because the overflow occurs while reading a buffer, rather than writing,
it is believed that this issue cannot lead to arbitrary code execution.
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 PNG decoder plugin (libpng_plugin.*)
can be removed manually from the VLC plugin installation directory.
This will prevent decoding of PNG images.
Solution
VLC media player 2.0.4 addresses this issue.
Patches for older versions are available
from the official VLC source code repository 2.0 and 1.1 branches.
