Title: Microsoft Windows Messenger Service Buffer Overrun Vulnerability
Severity: CRITICAL
Description:
Microsoft Windows Messenger Service is a Windows service that is responsible for sending and receiving "net send" messages. The service also handles any messages that are sent via the Alerter service between client and server systems. The Microsoft Messenger Service is not related to MSN Messenger.
Microsoft Windows Messenger Service is prone to a remotely exploitable buffer overrun vulnerability. This is due to a boundary condition error in the service that may allow for memory corruption. While the service does attempt to validate that messages are of an acceptable length, it is reported that after performing bounds checking, the service will replace instances of the 0x14 character in the message body with a CR/LF (Carriage Return/Line-feed) sequence, without accounting for the fact that each CR/LF sequence requires 2 bytes. In this manner, a particularly malformed message may potentially corrupt adjacent regions of process memory.
Exploitation could result in a denial of service or in execution of malicious code in Local System context, potentially allowing for full system compromise.
The service is exposed via NetBIOS (TCP ports 137-139), RPC (UDP port 135), and UDP ports 1025-1035.
*** December 9th, 2003 - The Symantec DeepSight Threat Analyst team has discovered that this buffer overrun may be triggered through the use of broadcast UDP packets. This avenue of exploitation dramatically increases the impact of a worm being released, as a broadcast attack could increase worm propagation times exponentially.
Affected Products:
- Avaya DefinityOne Media Servers
- Avaya IP600 Media Servers
- Avaya S3400 Message Application Server
- Avaya S8100 Media Servers
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP2
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP2
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP4
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP2
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP2
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP3
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP5
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP6
- Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0 SP6a
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP5
- Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP6
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP5
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP6
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP6a
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003
- Microsoft Windows XP Home
- Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1
References:
- CORE Security: MSRPC Messenger exploit
- Microsoft: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-043
- eEye Digital Security: Retina Messenger Service Vulnerability Scanner
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