Check Point Advisories

Microsoft Excel Asian Languages Style Handling Buffer Overflow (MS06-059; CVE-2006-3431)

Check Point Reference: CPAI-2006-261
Date Published: 13 Jun 2010
Severity: High
Last Updated: Sunday 13 June, 2010
Source:
Industry Reference:CVE-2006-3431
Protection Provided by:

Security Gateway
R81, R80, R77, R75
Who is Vulnerable?
Vulnerability Description Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet application that is usually released as part of the Microsoft Office suite. The application can create complex spreadsheets with multiple workbooks, formulas, and various data sources. The proprietary file format used for storing Microsoft Excel documents is known as the Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF), with different versions of the application supporting different versions of the format. The common extension used for Microsoft Excel documents is .xls. There exists a buffer overflow vulnerability in numerous versions of Microsoft Excel. The flaw is caused due to an insufficient checks when handling the Style record of the document, resulting in a stack buffer overflow. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability by enticing a user to open a crafted Excel Spreadsheet document, thereby injecting and executing arbitrary code. In case of an attack where code injection is not successful, all instances of the vulnerable Microsoft Excel application will terminate. This can potentially lead to loss of data in cases where spreadsheet documents are open. In case of an attack where code injection and execution is successful, the behavior of the target host 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 current user. The affected application would also stop functioning as a result of such an attack.

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

  1. In the IPS tab, click Protections and find the Microsoft Excel Asian Languages Style Handling Buffer Overflow (MS06-059) protection using the Search tool and Edit the protection's settings.
  2. Install policy on all Security Gateways.

This protection's log will contain the following information:

Attack Name:  Content Protection Violation.
Attack Information:  Microsoft Excel Asian languages style handling buffer overflow (MS06-059)

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