Re: The newest Word flaw is due to malformed data structure handling

[Juha-Matti Laurio <juha-matti.laurio@xxxxxxxx>]

And without any reasonable technical details it is very difficult to give a 
title field for the vulnerability.
Several advisories using titles like Word Unspecified Code Execution 
Vulnerability or Word Code Execution Vulnerability #2, #3 are not the trend we 
want.
Related to the newest Word issue US-CERT assigned a good title:
Microsoft Word malformed pointer vulnerability
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/996892

- Juha-Matti


Alexander Sotirov <asotirov@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
> Juha-Matti Laurio wrote:
> > Related to the newest MS Word 0-day
> > 
> http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/12/10/new-report-of-a-word-zero-day.aspx
> > 
> > US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#166700 released today lists the following
> > new technical detail:
> > 
> > "Microsoft Word fails to properly handle malformed data structures
> > allowing memory corruption to occur."
> > http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/166700
>
> I appreciate your efforts to keep the community informed, but these kinds of
> "technical details" are completely useless. It's not your fault, this has been a
> long-standing problem with the information from coming from the likes of CERT
> and MSRC.
>
> Almost all Office vulnerabilities (and security issues in file parsers in
> general) are a result of "malfromed data structures allowing memory corruption
> to occur". Repeating this statement for every Word bug doesn't tell us anything 
> new.
>
> Descriptions of vulnerabilities, especially ones that are found in the wild,
> should include enough information to allow researchers to uniquely identify the
> new vulnerability and differentiate it from all other bugs, both known ones and
> 0days. Without that level of detail, you end up with this:
> http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/443288
>
>
> Alex