[NT] Adobe Acrobat Reader XML Forms Data Format Buffer Overflow

From: SecuriTeam (support_at_securiteam.com)
Date: 03/04/04

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Date: 4 Mar 2004 15:35:53 +0200

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      Adobe Acrobat Reader XML Forms Data Format Buffer Overflow
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SUMMARY

    Adobe Acrobat Reader is a viewer that renders PDF documents. The Reader
    can be extended using the XML Forms Data Format or XFDF. XFDF is a format
    for representing forms data and annotations in a PDF document. XFDF files
    have a .xfdf extention and are rendered automatically on downloaded when
    using applications such as Internet Explorer. Also note that, regardless
    of the file extention if the MIME type is set to
    "application/vnd.adobe.xfdf" the file will be treated as a XFDF. When
    parsing an XFDF document the Adobe Reader suffers from a classic stack
    based buffer overflow vulnerability.

    DETAILS

    Vulnerable Systems:
     * Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5.1

    When the xfdf file is parsed an unsafe call to sprintf is made in
    preparation for outputting a debug message using OutputDebugString.
    Whether the process is being debugged or not the vulnerable code is still
    called. Rendering the file will trigger the overflow. A user would need to
    be enticed to a web site that hosted a malicious xfdf file or sent one via
    e-mail.

    Fix Information:
    On contacting Adobe, they confirmed that the current version is no longer
    vulnerable and NGSSoftware urgently advises users of Adobe Reader to
    upgrade <http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html>
    http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html.

    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

    The information has been provided by <mailto:nisr@nextgenss.com>
    NGSSoftware Insight Security Research.

    The original article can be found at:
    <http://www.nextgenss.com/advisories/adobexfdf.txt>
    http://www.nextgenss.com/advisories/adobexfdf.txt.

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