Check Point Advisories

mIRC PRIVMSG Message Processing Buffer Overflow (CVE-2008-4449)

Vulnerability
Protection

Check Point Reference:	CPAI-2008-352
Date Published:	6 Dec 2009
Severity:	High
Last Updated:	Sunday 06 December, 2009
Source:
Industry Reference:	CVE-2008-4449
Protection Provided by:	Security Gateway R81, R80, R77, R75
Who is Vulnerable?
Vulnerability Description	Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant messaging over the Internet. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private messages. mIRC is a popular IRC client for Microsoft Windows. There exists a buffer overflow vulnerability in mIRC. The flaw is due to insufficient input validation when processing PRIVMSG IRC messages. A remote attacker may exploit this vulnerability by persuading the target user to connect to a malicious IRC server. Successful attack could allow for arbitrary code injection and execution with privileges of the currently logged on user. In an attack case where code injection is not successful, the affected application will terminate abnormally. In a more sophisticated attack where code injection is successful, the behavior of the target is entirely dependent on the intended function of the injected code. The code in such a case would execute within the security context of the currently logged on user.

Protection Overview

This protection will detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability.

In order for the protection to be activated, update your Security Gateway product to the latest IPS update. For information on how to update IPS, go to SBP-2006-05, click on Protection tab and select the version of your choice.

Security Gateway R80 / R77 / R75

In the IPS tab, click Protections and find the mIRC PRIVMSG Message Processing Buffer Overflow protection using the Search tool and Edit the protection's settings.
Install policy on all Security Gateways.

This protection's log will contain the following information:

Attack Name: Instant Messenger.
Attack Information: mIRC PRIVMSG message processing buffer overflow