Security Advisory 1301

Summary           : Buffer overflows in freetype renderer and HTML subtitle parser
Date              : January 2013
Affected versions : VLC media player 2.0.4 and earlier
ID                : VideoLAN-SA-1301
CVE reference     : None

Details

When parsing a specially crafted file, a buffer overflow might occur.

Impact

If successful, a malicious third party could trigger an invalid memory access, leading to a crash of VLC or arbitratry code execution.

Threat mitigation

Exploitation of this issue requires the user to explicitly open a specially crafted file. In the case of the subtitle vulnerability, subtitles must be enabled. ASLR and DEP help reduce exposure, but may be bypassed.

Workarounds

The user should refrain from opening files from untrusted third parties or accessing untrusted remote sites (or disable the VLC browser plugins), until the patch is applied.

Solution

VLC media player 2.0.5 addresses this issue. Patches for older versions are available from the official VLC source code repository 2.0.

Credits

This vulnerability was reported by Aliz Hammond.

References

The VideoLAN project

http://www.videolan.org/

VLC official GIT repository

http://git.videolan.org/?p=vlc.git

History

17 November 2012

Patch for VLC development version.

7 December 2012

Security vulnerability disclosed.

14 December 2012

VLC 2.0.5 released.

3 January 2013

Security advisory published