Google Blocked 1.4 Million Bad Apps From Google Play in 2022.Related: EU to Run Bug Bounty Programs for 14 Free Software Projects Related: Flaw in Media Library Impacts VLC, Other Software Related: VLC Responds to Criticism Over Lack of HTTPS for Updates “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,” VideoLAN recommends. While ASLR and DEP help reduce exposure, they may be bypassed, the advisory reads. To successfully exploit the vulnerabilities, an attacker would have to trick the user into explicitly opening a specially crafted file or stream. “If successful, a malicious third party could trigger either a crash of VLC or an arbitrary code execution with the privileges of the target user,” VideoLAN explains in an advisory detailing both security bugs.

Because no strict check is performed before the memory operation (memmove, memcpy), a buffer overflow could be triggered. The issue is that the ReadFrame function uses a variable obtained directly from the file. The bug was reported through HackerOne, as part of a bug bounty program run by the European Union. Tracked as CVE-2019-5439 and residing in the ReadFrame (demux/avi/avi.c) function, the buffer overflow could be exploited through a specially crafted. The vulnerability has been addressed with the release of VLC 3.0.7, which also fixes a high-severity heap buffer overflow, along with various other vulnerabilities. This could then be leveraged to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable system, the researcher says. The bug resides in the zlib_decompress_extra function of the VLC media player and could be triggered during the parsing of a malformed MKV file type within the Matroska demuxer.ĭiscovered by Symeon Paraschoudis from Pen Test Partners, the issue allows a remote attacker to create a specially crafted file to trigger a double free in zlib_decompress_extra() (demux/mkv/utils.cpp). Tracked as CVE-2019-12874, the security flaw features a CVSS v3 score of 9.8. The application can parse and render a large number of media file formats.

VLC is a popular open-source media player that is also portable and works across platforms, and which also provides media streaming capabilities. VideoLAN has addressed a critical double-free vulnerability in the VLC media player that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on target systems.

Vlc media player by videolan