NSFOCUS Security Advisory (SA2009-03)

Windows Kernel Malformed PE File Remote DoS Vulnerability

Release Date: 2009-10-16

CVE ID: CVE-2009-2516

http://www.nsfocus.com/en/advisories/0903.html

Affected system:
==============

    Microsoft Windows XP
    Microsoft Windows 2000
    Microsoft Windows 2003
    Microsoft Windows Vista/SP1
    Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Unaffected system:
==============

   Microsoft Windows Vista SP2
   Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2

Impact:
======

NSFOCUS Security Team discovered a remote DoS vulnerability in Microsoft
Windows kernel. Carefully crafted PE file might crash the operating system.

Description:
==========

Windows is a popular operating system released by Microsoft. Carefully crafted
EXE files in PE format in floppy disks, movable storage devices or network
shares might lead to BSOD or even privilege escalation on Windows.

Windows kernel will parse and process the accessed PE files. When traversing
the chains the kernel does not correctly validate if the pointer is NULL, therefore
carefully crafted PE files might trigger access to illegal memory addresses
within the kernel, leading to BSOD of system restart. Locally logged in users
can also gain privilege escalation by exploiting this vulnerability.

If the PE file is stored in floppy disks, flash disks or network sharing
servers, the vulnerability will be triggered when the related directories are
accessed by Explorer.

Workaround:
===========

N/A

Vendor Status:
============

The vulnerability has been fixed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-058.
For details, please refer to the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS09-058.mspx

Additional Information:
==================

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the name
CVE-2009-2516 to this issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in the CVE
list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for security problems.
Candidates may change significantly before they become official CVE entries.

Credit:
=====

This vulnerability was discovered by Tan Jingli and Liu Yexin of NSFOCUS
Security Team.

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(c) 2009 NSFOCUS.

-- 
Regards,

NSFOCUS Security Team <security@nsfocus.com>
NSFOCUS Information Technology Co.,Ltd. (http://www.nsfocus.com)

PGP Key fingerprint = F8F2 F5D1 EF74 E08C 02FE 1B90 D7BF 7877 C6A6 F6DA