Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2016-9807: GStreamer out-of-bounds read in FLIC decoder

CVE-2016-9807 · Severity: medium · CVSS 5.5 · Published 2017-01-13

Technologies: Gstreamer, Red Hat GStreamer Plugins Good. Vendors: Gstreamer, Red Hat.

Executive brief

GStreamer is a widely used multimedia framework that allows applications to play and process video and audio files. A vulnerability in its media decoding component could allow a specially crafted video file to crash any application using the library. This could lead to a denial of service for users attempting to view malicious media content.

Technical details

An out-of-bounds read vulnerability (CWE-125) exists in the flx_decode_chunks function within gst/flx/gstflxdec.c of GStreamer. The issue is triggered when the FLIC (FLX) media file format decoding plug-in processes a maliciously crafted file. An attacker can exploit this by providing a specially designed FLIC file to an application using GStreamer, leading to an invalid memory read and a subsequent application crash (Denial of Service). While the primary impact is a crash, some related advisories suggest potential for further memory corruption. The vulnerability is addressed in GStreamer version 1.10.2, and some vendors like Red Hat have opted to remove the vulnerable plug-in entirely in their updates.

Affected products

  • GStreamer GStreamer before 1.10.2
  • Red Hat gstreamer-plugins-good Enterprise Linux 6, Enterprise Linux 7

Timeline

  • 2016-12-01: disclosed: Initial public disclosure on oss-security mailing list
  • 2016-12-21: patched: Red Hat released security updates for RHEL 6
  • 2017-01-05: patched: Red Hat released security updates for RHEL 7
  • 2017-01-13: advisory: NVD publication date

References

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