Unchecked Buffer in Windows Media Player New

A security vulnerability exists in the Windows Media Player .ASF Processor which could allow a malicious user to exploit an unchecked buffer to run code of their choice on the target computer through a malformed media stream.

Issue

Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) is one of the streaming media formats that is supported by Windows Media Player. A security vulnerability occurs in Windows Media Player 6.4 because the code that processes ASF files contains an unchecked buffer.

By creating a specially-malformed ASF file and inducing a user to play it, an attacker could overrun the buffer, with two possible results. In the simplest case, Windows Media Player 6.4 would stop working, and in the more complex case, code that was chosen by the attacker could be made to run on the user's computer, with the privileges of the user.

The scope of this vulnerability is rather limited. It affects only Windows Media Player 6.4, and can only be exploited by the user opening and deliberately playing an ASF file. There is no capability to exploit this vulnerability by using e-mail messages or a Web page.

Affected Products

• Windows Media Player 6.4, 7.x or Media Player for Windows XP

Solution

Users of Windows Media Player 6.4, 7, or 7.1 should download and install the patch listed below. Windows XP users should visit Windows Update to install the latest fixes.

Download

Patch: http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/Update/308567/WIN98MeXP/EN-US/wm308567.exe

Further Details

Source: Microsoft Corporation

Reference: Microsoft Corporation

Updated: November 20, 2001

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