An Analysis of the (In)Security State of the GameHouse Game Installation Mechanism

[RBS Research <research () riskbasedsecurity com>]

January 2013, we encountered the latest version of RealArcade installer
provided by GameHouse (a division of RealNetworks) on a system during an
audit. Considering its historical vulnerabilities and recent reports about
vulnerabilities in game clients/installers, we decided to take a closer
look at its current security state.

It was uncovered that not only was it still affected by almost two year
old, publicly known vulnerabilities allowing command execution, but also
new issues incl. unsafe permissions and a use-after-free. The full paper
describes the flaws in the GameHouse game installer for Windows, and how it
exposes users’ systems.

While not responsive (except a classic response from support - see timeline
in report), GameHouse did silently address some of these issues in a site
update around May 2013, but other concerns still remain.

Blog:
http://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2013/09/an-analysis-of-the-insecurity-state-of-the-gamehouse-game-installation-mechanism/

Paper:
http://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/reports/RBS-GameHouseAnalysis-Sept2013.pdf

--

Carsten Eiram
Risk Based Security

Twitter: @RiskBased / @CarstenEiram

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