Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities Within libxls
Summary: Cisco Talos released seven new vulnerabilities in the libxls library - TALOS-2017-0403, 0404, 0426, 0460, 0461, 0462 and 0463 - that allow remote code execution via specially crafted XLS files. The flaws include out-of-bounds writes in xls_mergedCells and read_MSAT, a stack-based buffer overflow in xls_getfcell, integer overflows in xls_preparseWorkSheet and xls_appendSST, and an out-of-bounds issue in xls_addCell, affecting libxls 1.3.4 and 1.4, with an update available only via svn.
Bottom line: libxls is used by the readxl package in R and the xls2csv tool, and the malicious file can arrive as an email attachment in a phishing campaign - so a spreadsheet that looks routine is the delivery mechanism.
Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗
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