In this blog post, we're going to delve into CVE-2023-44358, a critical vulnerability found in Adobe Acrobat Reader. As one of the most utilized PDF readers, it's vital to be aware of the security risks that may affect your system. The vulnerability in question involves an out-of-bounds read, putting your sensitive memory information at risk. To protect your system, it's essential to understand the vulnerability and how attackers can exploit it to bypass security mitigations such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

What is an out-of-bounds read vulnerability?
An out-of-bounds read vulnerability takes place when, due to a programming error, an application reads data past the end or before the beginning of the intended buffer. This can result in disclosure of confidential information stored in adjacent memory locations. In essence, this vulnerability can potentially leak sensitive memory content if exploited correctly by an attacker.

Affected Versions

According to the CVE report, Adobe Acrobat Reader versions 23.006.20360 and earlier, as well as 20.005.30524 and earlier, are affected by this vulnerability.

Exploit Details

For this vulnerability to be exploited, user interaction is required. This means that the attacker must trick the victim into opening a malicious file, which could be a PDF document containing the malicious payload. Once the file is opened, the attacker can leverage the out-of-bounds read issue to gain access to sensitive memory information and potentially bypass ASLR, a commonly used security defense mechanism.

When analyzing the vulnerable code, it might look something like this

void vulnerable_function(char *data, unsigned int size) {
  char buffer[256];
  // If the size of data is greater than the buffer size, an out-of-bounds read is triggered.
  if (size > sizeof(buffer)) {
    // Copy the data to buffer
    memcpy(buffer, data, size);
  }
}

In the above code snippet, an out-of-bounds read can be triggered if size is larger than the size of buffer. When this happens, memcpy will overwrite adjacent memory locations, potentially disclosing sensitive data.

You can find more details about this vulnerability by referring to the following sources

1. Adobe Security Bulletin
2. CVE Details - CVE-2023-44358
3. NIST National Vulnerability Database

Mitigation

To protect your system against this vulnerability, you should ensure that you have updated Adobe Acrobat Reader to the latest version. Updating to a patched version will address the out-of-bounds read issue and prevent potential attackers from bypassing ASLR using this vulnerability.

Conclusion

CVE-2023-44358 is a serious out-of-bounds read vulnerability found in Adobe Acrobat Reader. It's crucial to understand the risks associated with this vulnerability and promptly apply the necessary updates to your software. By doing so, you'll better protect your systems against potential attacks that might target this vulnerability.

Timeline

Published on: 11/16/2023 10:15:13 UTC
Last modified on: 11/22/2023 17:04:35 UTC