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Secunia Research 09/06/2009
- Microsoft Excel String Parsing Integer Overflow -
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Table of Contents
Affected Software....................................................1
Severity.............................................................2
Vendor's Description of Software.....................................3
Description of Vulnerability.........................................4
Solution.............................................................5
Time Table...........................................................6
Credits..............................................................7
References...........................................................8
About Secunia........................................................9
Verification........................................................10
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1) Affected Software
* Microsoft Office Excel 2003
NOTE: Other versions may also be affected.
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2) Severity
Rating: Highly critical
Impact: System compromise
Where: Remote
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3) Vendor's Description of Software
"Microsoft Office Excel is a powerful tool you can use to create and
format spreadsheets, and analyze and share information to make more
informed decisions.".
Product Link:
http://office.microsoft.com/excel
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4) Description of Vulnerability
Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft Office
Excel, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a
user's system.
The vulnerability is caused due to an integer overflow error when
processing the number of strings in a file and can be exploited to
cause a heap-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted Excel
file.
Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code.
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5) Solution
Apply patches from MS09-021.
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6) Time Table
10/03/2009 - Vendor notified.
10/03/2009 - Vendor response.
19/05/2009 - Status update requested.
22/05/2009 - Vendor provides status update.
09/06/2009 - Public disclosure.
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7) Credits
Discovered by Carsten Eiram, Secunia Research.
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8) References
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned
CVE-2009-0561 for the vulnerability.
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9) About Secunia
Secunia offers vulnerability management solutions to corporate
customers with verified and reliable vulnerability intelligence
relevant to their specific system configuration:
http://secunia.com/advisories/business_solutions/
Secunia also provides a publicly accessible and comprehensive advisory
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http://secunia.com/advisories/
Secunia believes that it is important to support the community and to
do active vulnerability research in order to aid improving the
security and reliability of software in general:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/
Secunia regularly hires new skilled team members. Check the URL below
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http://secunia.com/corporate/jobs/
Secunia offers a FREE mailing list called Secunia Security Advisories:
http://secunia.com/advisories/mailing_lists/
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10) Verification
Please verify this advisory by visiting the Secunia website:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2009-12/
Complete list of vulnerability reports published by Secunia Research:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/
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