Critical Code Execution Flaw Found in LIVE555 Streaming Library

Oct 22, 2018

Security researchers have discovered a serious code execution
vulnerability in the LIVE555 streaming media library—which is being
used by popular media players, along with a number of embedded
devices capable of streaming media.

LIVE555 streaming media, developed and maintained by Live Networks, is a set of C++ libraries
companies and application developers use to stream multimedia over
open standard protocols like RTP/RTCP, RTSP or SIP.
^[1]

The LIVE555 streaming media libraries support streaming, receiving,
and processing of various video formats such as MPEG, H.265, H.264,
H.263+, VP8, DV, and JPEG video, and several audio codecs such as
MPEG, AAC, AMR, AC-3, and Vorbis.

UPDATE: LIVE555 streaming media library supports both
server and client, and is internally being used by many well-known
media software such as VLC and MPlayer, security researchers at
Talos mentioned in the advisory.

Through researchers didn’t specify if the vulnerable component
(a server-side library) is being used by the popular VLC player,
team at VLC today contacted THN and clarified that their media
player application is using LIVE555 streaming media at the
client-side only.

The code execution vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-4013 and
discovered by researcher Lilith Wyatt of Cisco Talos Intelligence
Group, resides in the HTTP packet-parsing functionality of the
LIVE555 RTSP, which parses HTTP headers for tunneling RTSP over
HTTP.

“A specially crafted packet can cause a stack-based buffer
overflow, resulting in code execution,” Cisco Talos’ security
advisory ^[2] says. “An attacker can
send a packet to trigger this vulnerability.”

To exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs to do is
create and send “a packet containing multiple ‘Accept:’ or
‘x-sessioncookie’ strings” to the vulnerable application, which
will trigger a stack buffer overflow in the ‘lookForHeader’
function, leading to arbitrary code execution.

Cisco Talos team confirmed the vulnerability in Live Networks
LIVE555 Media Server version 0.92, but the team believes the
security issue may also be present in the earlier version of the
product.

Cisco Talos responsibly reported the vulnerability to Live
Networks on October 10 and publicly disclosed the security issue on
October 18 after the vendor released security patches ^[3] on October 17.

References

^{^}
Live Networks
(www.live555.com)
^{^}
security advisory
(blog.talosintelligence.com)
^{^}
released security patches
(www.live555.com)

The Hacker News Headlines

Google Chrome’s New Feature Alerts Users About Auto-Removal of Malicious Extensions

Aug 18, 2023

The Hacker News Headlines

New Apple iOS 16 Exploit Enables Stealthy Cellular Access Under Fake Airplane Mode

Aug 18, 2023

The Hacker News Headlines

China-Linked Bronze Starlight Group Targeting Gambling Sector with Cobalt Strike Beacons

Aug 18, 2023

OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Critical Code Execution Flaw Found in LIVE555 Streaming Library

References

Related Post

Google Chrome’s New Feature Alerts Users About Auto-Removal of Malicious Extensions

New Apple iOS 16 Exploit Enables Stealthy Cellular Access Under Fake Airplane Mode

China-Linked Bronze Starlight Group Targeting Gambling Sector with Cobalt Strike Beacons

You missed

Protected: Rotary VI EAST

Protected: BetterCyberCareer Group

Protected: Benin Club 1931 – Official

Protected: Whatsapp AI Automation Group