Vulnerabilities > CVE-2017-8542 - Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerability in Microsoft products
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
NONE Integrity impact
NONE Availability impact
HIGH Summary
The Microsoft Malware Protection Engine running on Microsoft Forefront and Microsoft Defender on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10 Gold, 1511, 1607, and 1703, and Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and 2016, does not properly scan a specially crafted file leading to denial of service. aka "Microsoft Malware Protection Engine Denial of Service Vulnerability", a different vulnerability than CVE-2017-8535, CVE-2017-8536, CVE-2017-8537, and CVE-2017-8539.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- XML Nested Payloads Applications often need to transform data in and out of the XML format by using an XML parser. It may be possible for an attacker to inject data that may have an adverse effect on the XML parser when it is being processed. By nesting XML data and causing this data to be continuously self-referential, an attacker can cause the XML parser to consume more resources while processing, causing excessive memory consumption and CPU utilization. An attacker's goal is to leverage parser failure to his or her advantage. In most cases this type of an attack will result in a denial of service due to an application becoming unstable, freezing, or crash. However it may be possible to cause a crash resulting in arbitrary code execution, leading to a jump from the data plane to the control plane [R.230.1].
- XML Oversized Payloads Applications often need to transform data in and out of the XML format by using an XML parser. It may be possible for an attacker to inject data that may have an adverse effect on the XML parser when it is being processed. By supplying oversized payloads in input vectors that will be processed by the XML parser, an attacker can cause the XML parser to consume more resources while processing, causing excessive memory consumption and CPU utilization, and potentially cause execution of arbitrary code. An attacker's goal is to leverage parser failure to his or her advantage. In many cases this type of an attack will result in a denial of service due to an application becoming unstable, freezing, or crash. However it is possible to cause a crash resulting in arbitrary code execution, leading to a jump from the data plane to the control plane [R.231.1].
- Violating Implicit Assumptions Regarding XML Content (aka XML Denial of Service (XDoS)) XML Denial of Service (XDoS) can be applied to any technology that utilizes XML data. This is, of course, most distributed systems technology including Java, .Net, databases, and so on. XDoS is most closely associated with web services, SOAP, and Rest, because remote service requesters can post malicious XML payloads to the service provider designed to exhaust the service provider's memory, CPU, and/or disk space. The main weakness in XDoS is that the service provider generally must inspect, parse, and validate the XML messages to determine routing, workflow, security considerations, and so on. It is exactly these inspection, parsing, and validation routines that XDoS targets. There are three primary attack vectors that XDoS can navigate Target CPU through recursion: attacker creates a recursive payload and sends to service provider Target memory through jumbo payloads: service provider uses DOM to parse XML. DOM creates in memory representation of XML document, but when document is very large (for example, north of 1 Gb) service provider host may exhaust memory trying to build memory objects. XML Ping of death: attack service provider with numerous small files that clog the system. All of the above attacks exploit the loosely coupled nature of web services, where the service provider has little to no control over the service requester and any messages the service requester sends.
- XML Parser Attack Applications often need to transform data in and out of the XML format by using an XML parser. It may be possible for an attacker to inject data that may have an adverse effect on the XML parser when it is being processed. These adverse effects may include the parser crashing, consuming too much of a resource, executing too slowly, executing code supplied by an attacker, allowing usage of unintended system functionality, etc. An attacker's goal is to leverage parser failure to his or her advantage. In some cases it may be possible to jump from the data plane to the control plane via bad data being passed to an XML parser. [R.99.1]
Nessus
| NASL family | Windows |
| NASL id | MICROSOFT_MPENG_1_1_13804.NASL |
| description | The version of Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (MMPE) installed on the remote Windows host is prior to 1.1.13804.0. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities : - Multiple denial of service vulnerabilities exist due to improper scanning of specially crafted files. An unauthenticated, remote attacker can exploit these, by convincing a user to download or open a malicious file, to cause the monitoring service to stop. (CVE-2017-8535, CVE-2017-8536, CVE-2017-8537, CVE-2017-8539, CVE-2017-8542) - Multiple memory corruption issues exist due to improper validation of input when scanning specially crafted files. An unauthenticated, remote attacker can exploit these, by convincing a user to download or open a malicious file, to cause a denial of service condition or the possible execution of arbitrary code. (CVE-2017-8538, CVE-2017-8541) - A use-after-free error exists in the garbage collection system used for managing JavaScript objects when scanning specially crafted files. An unauthenticated, remote attacker can exploit this, by convincing a user to download or open a malicious file, to dereference already freed memory and potentially execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2017-8540) - A flaw exits in the x86 emulator implementation for the Win32 API due to improper restrictions on access to certain NTDLL routines. An unauthenticated, remote attacker can exploit this, by convincing a user to download or open a malicious file, to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. Note that Nessus has checked if a vulnerable version of MMPE is being used by any of the following applications : - Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 - Microsoft Endpoint Protection - Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint - Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection - Microsoft Security Essentials - Windows Defender for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 10 1511, Windows 10 1607, Windows 10 1703, and Windows Server 2016 - Windows Intune Endpoint Protection |
| last seen | 2020-06-01 |
| modified | 2020-06-02 |
| plugin id | 100551 |
| published | 2017-05-31 |
| reporter | This script is Copyright (C) 2017-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. |
| source | https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/100551 |
| title | Microsoft Malware Protection Engine < 1.1.13804 Multiple Vulnerabilities |
| code | |