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Microsoft Excel Multiple Code Execution Vulnerabilities
Secunia Advisory: SA20686
Release Date: 2006-06-16
Last Update: 2006-07-12
Popularity: 43,683 views

Critical:
Extremely critical
Impact: System access
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Vendor Patch

Software:Microsoft Excel 2000
Microsoft Excel 2002
Microsoft Excel 2003
Microsoft Office 2000
Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition
Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition
Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition
Microsoft Office 2003 Student and Teacher Edition
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac
Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003
Microsoft Office X for Mac
Microsoft Office XP

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CVE reference:CVE-2006-1301
CVE-2006-1302
CVE-2006-1304
CVE-2006-1306
CVE-2006-1308
CVE-2006-1309
CVE-2006-2388
CVE-2006-3059


Description:
Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Microsoft Excel, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.

1) An error within the processing of "SELECTION" records can be exploited to corrupt memory via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "SELECTION" record.

According to the vendor, this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.

2) Another error within the processing of "SELECTION" records can also be exploited to corrupt memory via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "SELECTION" record.

3) An error within the processing of "COLINFO" records can be exploited to corrupt memory via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "COLINFO" record.

4) An array index is taken directly from the Excel document when processing "OBJECT" records. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary code via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "OBJECT" record.

5) An error within the processing of "FNGROUPCOUNT" values can be exploited to corrupt memory via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "FNGROUPCOUNT" value.

6) An error within the processing of "LABEL" records can be exploited to corrupt memory via a malicious Excel document containing a malformed "LABEL" record.

7) An error when rebuilding files with malformed cell comments can be exploited to corrupt memory via a specially crafted Excel file.

8) A memory corruption error in the "repair mode" functionality used for repairing corrupted documents can be exploited to execute arbitrary code via a specially crafted Excel documents.

NOTE: This vulnerability is a so-called 0-day and is already being actively exploited.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities allows execution of arbitrary code.

Solution:
Apply patches.

Microsoft Excel 2003 (requires Office 2003 SP1/SP2):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/de...=5788518C-0FB3-4381-BB42-BCA71A4FD646

Microsoft Excel Viewer 2003 (requires Office 2003 SP1/SP2):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/de...=779666AB-CCD1-47A1-8A5A-B288A5204369

Microsoft Excel 2002 (requires Office XP SP3):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/de...=0828F77F-BE33-4913-B68D-6A375D5FE130

Microsoft Excel 2000 (requires Office 2000 SP3):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/de...=D8A2AD6D-582C-4185-ADE1-671D2128D3EE

Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Microsoft Excel v. X for Mac:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Provided and/or discovered by:
1) The vendor credits Posidron.
2) Wen Yujie, NSFocus Security Team.
3) Wen Yujie, NSFocus Security Team.
4) Sowhat of Nevis Labs (The vendor also credits Arnaud Dovi and iDEFENSE).
5) Xin Ouyang, Nevis Networks.
6) The vendor credits Shaun Colley, NGSS Consulting.
7) Discovered by Arnaud Dovi and reported via ZDI.
8) Discovered in the wild (the vendor also credits Costin Ionescu, Symantec)

Changelog:
2006-06-20: Added additional information from Microsoft. Added CVE reference. Updated "Solution" section by referring to vendor workarounds.
2006-07-11: Added additional vulnerabilities. Updated "Solution" section.
2006-07-12: Added additional information from NSFocus, Sowhat, and ZDI.

Original Advisory:
MS06-037 (KB917285):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-037.mspx

Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/921365.mspx
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/06/16/436174.aspx

NSFocus:
http://www.nsfocus.com/english/homepage/research/0605.htm
http://www.nsfocus.com/english/homepage/research/0606.htm

Sowhat:
http://secway.org/advisory/AD20060711.txt

Zero Day Initiative:
http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-06-022.html


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