Symantec Anti-Virus Software Open To Attack

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: EEkid () aol com
Date: December 20, 2005 11:32:46 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Symantec Anti-Virus Software Open To Attack

Symantec Anti-Virus Software Open To Attack

The bug, which could result in a completely compromised machine,  
remains unpatched although Symantec has issued an advisory.

By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News

Dec 20, 2005 05:06 PM

Symantec's line of anti-virus software is vulnerable to attack, a  
prominent security researcher revealed Tuesday. The bug is currently  
unpatched, although Symantec has issued an advisory.

The vulnerability, which was discovered and reported by Alex Wheeler,  
is in how Symantec's AntiVirus Library, part of all the Cupertino,  
Calif.-based security giant's anti-virus products, handles RAR  
compressed files. RAR files are created by the WinRAR compression  
utility, developed and sold by RarLab.

The bug, labeled as "Highly critical" by Danish vulnerability tracker  
Secunia and "High" by Symantec itself, can cause a heap overflow,  
which then may let an attacker execute additional code. Bottom-line:  
the bug could result in a completely compromised machine.

"The issues can be leveraged remotely to gain complete control over  
the affected system," Symantec wrote in an alert Tuesday morning to  
customers of its DeepSight Threat Management System.

All editions of Symantec's Norton Internet Security and Norton  
AntiVirus, including AntiVirus for the Macintosh, are at risk, as are  
other products which include the Library. Those include such  
enterprise-specific lines as AntiVirus Corporate Edition, Brightmail  
Anti-Spam, Client Security, and Gateway Security.

Symantec has not issued a patch for the vulnerability, but the  
DeepSight alert recommended that users disable scanning for RAR  
archive files.

Wheeler is well known among researchers for his probing of security  
software weaknesses. Earlier in 2005, he disclosed a slew of  
vulnerabilities in software from major vendors like McAfee, Kaspersky  
Labs, F-Secure, and Trend Micro. All the bugs he has discovered  
involve how the various anti-virus scanning engines handle compressed  
files.

This is the second scanning vulnerability Wheeler has uncovered in  
Symantec's product line. In February, while working with Internet  
Security Systems, a Symantec rival, he announced a bug in how  
Symantec's scanning engine could be hacked as it sniffed through UPX- 
formatted files.








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