Fortinet Discovers Apple QuickTime Picture Viewer Vulnerability

Summary

Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs has discovered a DLL loading vulnerability in Apple QuickTime Picture Viewer.

Solutions

Users should apply the solution provided by Apple.

FortiGuard Labs has posted a blog post and document that recommends further mitigation strategy for this vulnerability.

Additional Information

Apple QuickTime Picture Viewer pre-loads 3 DLLs: "CoreVideo.dll", "CoreGraphics.dll", and/or "CoreAudioToolbox.dll". 

Double-clicking on a ".pic" file will call Apple QuickTime Picture Viewer to process the ".pic" file. Using the example "CoreVideo.dll", an attacker may plant any ".pic" file along with a malicious "CoreVideo.dll" DLL in the same directory on a victim's machine. Once the ".pic" file is executed, the malicious "CoreVideo.dll" library will be called before the one supplied by Apple due to the standard search order. To locate this DLL file, Picture Viewer adds a corresponding path to the PATH environment variable, which is preempted by the current working directory when the system searches for the DLL.

Acknowledgement

Haifei Li of Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs

IPS Subscription

Fortinet customers who subscribe to Fortinet's intrusion prevention (IPS) service should be protected against this vulnerability with the appropriate configuration parameters in place. Fortinet's IPS service is one component of FortiGuard Subscription Services, which also offer comprehensive solutions such as antivirus, Web content filtering and antispam capabilities. These services enable protection against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are continuously updated by FortiGuard Labs, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and true zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. These updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail and FortiClient products. Fortinet strictly follows responsible disclosure guidelines to ensure optimum protection during a threat's lifecycle.