Executive brief
Snes9K is an emulator used to play Super Nintendo games on modern computers. A security flaw in its online play configuration allows a local user to crash the application or take full control of the system by entering a specially crafted sequence of characters into the network port settings. This could lead to unauthorized software installation or data theft on the affected computer.
Technical details
A stack-based buffer overflow exists in Snes9K version 0.0.9z within the 'Socket Port Number' input field of the Netplay Options menu. The vulnerability is caused by improper bounds checking when processing user-supplied strings in this field, allowing an attacker to overwrite the Structured Exception Handler (SEH) chain. A local attacker can exploit this by pasting a malicious payload into the configuration field, leading to arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the application. While the attack requires local access to the interface, it does not require prior administrative privileges. No official patch is currently available as the project appears to be legacy software.
Affected products
- Sourceforge Snes9K 0.0.9z
Timeline
- 2018-10-13: disclosed: Initial exploit code published by researcher Abdullah Alıç
- 2026-04-04: advisory: CVE-2018-25251 published by VulnCheck and NVD