Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2017-9117: Libtiff: Buffer overflow

CVE-2017-9117 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Libtiff, along with 1 other product in NVD’s configuration data. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

In LibTIFF 4.0.6 and possibly other versions, the program processes BMP images without verifying that biWidth and biHeight in the bitmap-information header match the actual input, as demonstrated by a heap-based buffer over-read in bmp2tiff. NOTE: mentioning bmp2tiff does not imply that the activation point is in the bmp2tiff.c file (which was removed before the 4.0.7 release).

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
  • Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
  • Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
  • User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
  • Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
  • Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
  • Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read

The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

Affected products

  • Libtiff: 4.0.7
  • Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04; 16.04; 17.10

References