Hi Group This is a real warning, from the CIAC. US Department of energy ( Computer incident advisory Capability) I have included the URL for the page where the CIAC has announced this. This is not a virus but a warning of what can happen, and how to fix it. People can send you an e-mail that can run commands on your computer. There page (this one is a copy of it) explains how this can be done. Microsoft and Netscape, have patches for this. I have given you the URL so you can go there yourself. I applied the Outlook Patch this morning, it took about 30 seconds. Microsoft and Netscape have announced that this is a very real possibility, and that you should download their patch. Debi K. (listowner) INFORMATION BULLETIN I-077A: Mime Name Vulnerability in Outlook and Messenger July 28, 1998 00:00 GMT http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/i-077a.shtml ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Here is what the page says: PROBLEM: A buffer overflow vulnerability has been identified in Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Netscape Messenger (Mail) that allows an e-mail or news message to contain malicious code in a mime header. That code is executed when the header is processed by the e-mail/news reader. All of these e-mail/news readers are widely distributed with popular packages such as Internet Explorer, Windows 98, Windows 97, Office 97, and Netscape Communicator. PLATFORM: Any platform that runs the vulnerable e-mail/news readers: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Macintosh and Solaris. DAMAGE: If exploited, this vulnerability allows a remote user to run arbitrary code on a users machine with the user's privileges. The remotely executed code could do anything from sending thousands of e-mails in the user's name to formatting the hard drive. SOLUTION: Apply patches from Microsoft and Netscape. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- VULNERABILITY Risk is high. While we have not yet heard of anyone exploiting ASSESSMENT: this vulnerability for malicious purposes, the ease with which it can be exploited, the wide distribution of vulnerable readers, and the potential for damage makes it a very serious problem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Mime Name Vulnerability in Outlook and Messenger (Rev. a - Links at Microsoft changed) CIAC has received information about a vulnerability in the Microsoft and Netscape e-mail/news products: Outlook, Outlook Express, and Messenger (Mail). These e-mail/news programs improperly handle the mime name tags used to identify attachments to e-mail/news messages. An improper name tag can result in a buffer overflow condition when the program processes the attachment. As the reader generally processes the attachments when the user reads the message, the buffer overflow condition can be initiated, by simply reading the e-mail/news message. The buffer overflow condition can then be exploited to run any arbitrary code contained in the attachment's tags. The code runs with the user's permissions to do anything the user can do such as re-send the e-mail to the users mailing list, change files, or format the hard drive. While at first glance this appears to the Good_Times hoax come to life (see http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#goodtimes) this is not really the case. Good_Times was supposed to run itself on any system that downloaded and read the Good_Times message. This mime name vulnerability is caused by improperly handled mime headers in a few versions of some very popular e- mail/news readers. By replacing the vulnerable readers with properly patched versions, this vulnerability is eliminated. BACKGROUND ========== The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME is a protocol for sending non-ASCII text or multi-part documents as part of e-mail or news message. Users of the readers rarely see the mime headers since they are stripped out of the message as it is displayed on the user's machine. The mime headers tell the reader where the different parts of the message begin and end, what type of data is contained in the message part, what encoding is used to convert the message, what the name of the file is that was attached as a message part, and other information necessary for the successful transmission of the data. In the vulnerable readers, the headers are read into memory and processed without checking their length. When the length of the header is longer than one of the buffers in memory where it is stored during processing, data in the header that falls beyond the end of the buffer overwrites other code and data in memory. This overwriting is the classic "buffer overflow" condition. If the overwritten piece of memory is part of the running program, the code from the header in the overwritten part is executed in place of the program's code. ASSESSMENT ========== As of the release date of this advisory, we have not heard of anyone exploiting this vulnerability but we believe it to be extremely serious. Users should take immediate action to patch vulnerable systems. We base this assessment on the ease with which the vulnerability can be exploited, the widespread use of the vulnerable e-mail/news readers, and the potential for doing serious damage to a computer. An additional, serious, long-term problem is the fact that these e-mail/news readers are automatically installed on many systems along with web browsers, office applications and operating systems. For example, Windows 98 comes preinstalled on many new systems and contains one of the vulnerable readers. As the installations are usually done from a CD-ROM, reinstalling a system in the future for any reason reinstalls the vulnerable readers. Users must insure that if they reinstall systems that they then replace the vulnerable readers with appropriately patched versions. VULNERABLE APPLICATIONS ======================= Vulnerabilities in the following applications have been confirmed by the manufacturers: Outlook Express v4.72.2106.4 and v4.72.3110.1 (Windows and UNIX) Outlook '98 (Windows) Netscape Messenger (Mail) v4.05, or 4.5b1 (Windows) The current version of Eudora does not appear to be vulnerable. Older e-mail readers that do not handle mime attachments are not vulnerable. PATCHES ======= Information is available from Microsoft at: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/security/oelong.htm Patched versions of Outlook and Outlook Express are available from Microsoft at the URLs: Outlook 98 Go to: http://support.microsoft.com/support/downloads/LNP499.asp Download: OUTPATCH.EXE Outlook Express First update to Internet Explorer 4.01 at: http://www.Microsoft.com/ie Then obtain the patch from: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/security/oelong.htm Patches for Macintosh and Solaris versions of Outlook Express will be available soon at: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/security/oelong.htm Version 4.06 of Netscape Communicator is due out around August 7 and will contain a patched version of the e-mail reader. Patches will be available through their Smart Update web page: http://home.netscape.com/download/su1.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- A special thanks goes to Ari Takanen and Marko Laakso of the University of Oulu in Finland and Russ Cooper the Owner/Moderator of the NTBugtraq mailing list for finding and verifying this vulnerability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- For additional information or assistance, please contact CIAC: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (8:00 - 18:00 PST, 16:00 - 2:00 GMT) Emergency (DOE, DOE Contractors, and NIH ONLY): 1-800-759-7243, 8550070 (primary), 8550074 (secondary) FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@llnl.gov World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ http://ciac.llnl.gov (same machine -- either one will work) Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org ciac.llnl.gov (same machine -- either one will work) Modem access: +1 (925) 423-4753 (28.8K baud) +1 (925) 423-3331 (28.8K baud) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- UCRL-MI-119788 [Disclaimer] Thanks, and good luck Debi K. mailto:schbusdrv@thegrid.net Proud sponsor of "ROOTSWEB"