Memory Corruption Vulnerability (Impress Presentations)
Version 3.0
Updated October 11, 2016
Updated August 30, 2016
Announced July 21, 2016
Description
An OpenDocument Presentation .ODP or Presentation Template .OTP file can contain invalid presentation elements that lead to memory corruption when the document is loaded in Apache OpenOffice Impress. The defect may cause the document to appear as corrupted and OpenOffice may crash in a recovery-stuck mode requiring manual intervention. A crafted exploitation of the defect can allow an attacker to cause denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) and possible execution of arbitrary code.
Impress cannot be used to directly produce documents having the CVE-2016-1513-related defect. Impress-authored .ODF and .ODT documents of an user's own that exhibit any of these characteristics are not the result of an exploit. They may be consequences of a separate Impress defect that should be reported.
Severity: Medium
There are no known exploits of this vulnerabilty.
A proof-of-concept demonstration exists.
Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation
Versions Affected
All Apache OpenOffice versions 4.1.2 and older are affected.
OpenOffice.org versions are also affected.
Mitigation
Install Apache OpenOffice 4.1.3 for the latest maintenance and
cumulative security fixes. Use the Apache OpenOffice
download page
Users of Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2 that cannot update to 4.1.3
can Install the 4.1.2-patch1 Hotfix available at
http://archive.apache.org/dist/openoffice/4.1.2-patch1/hotfix.html.
A source-code patch that blocks the vulnerability has been developed and is available for developers at issue 127045 with SVN revision
1754535.
Antivirus products can detect documents attempting to exploit this vulnerability by employing Snort Signature IDs 35828-35829.
Defenses and Work-Arounds
If you are unable to update, there are other precautions that
can be taken. These precausions are recommended for all users
of all versions of Apache OpenOffice, including the latest
available.
Avoid operating Apache OpenOffice (and any other personal
productivity programs) under a computer account that has
administrative privileges of any kind. While installation of
Apache OpenOffice requires elevated privileges and user permission
on platforms such as Microsoft Windows, operation of the software
does not.
Keeping antivirus/antimalware software current is also important.
This will serve to identify and distinguish suspicious documents
that involve the exploit, avoiding confusion with documents that
are damaged and/or fail for other reasons.
Further Information
For additional information and assistance, consult the Apache OpenOffice Community Forums, or make requests to the users@openoffice.apache.org public mailing list. Defects not involving suspected security vulnerabilities can be reported with a normal issue via Bugzilla.
The latest information on Apache OpenOffice security bulletins can be found at the Bulletin Archive page.
Credits
The Apache OpenOffice project acknowledges the discovery and analysis for CVE-2016-1513 by Yves Younan and Richard Johnson of Cisco Talos.
