A use-after-free vulnerability was discovered in Adobe Flash Player before 28.0.0.161. This vulnerability occurs due to a dangling pointer in the Primetime SDK related to media player handling of listener objects. A successful attack can lead to arbitrary code execution. This was exploited in the wild in January and February 2018.
Weakness
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory “belongs” to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flash_player | Adobe | * | 28.0.0.161 (excluding) |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Supplementary | RedHat | flash-plugin-0:28.0.0.161-1.el6_9 | * |
| Adobe-flashplugin | Ubuntu | artful | * |
| Adobe-flashplugin | Ubuntu | trusty | * |
| Adobe-flashplugin | Ubuntu | upstream | * |
| Adobe-flashplugin | Ubuntu | xenial | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | artful | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | devel | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | esm-apps/xenial | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | trusty | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | upstream | * |
| Flashplugin-nonfree | Ubuntu | xenial | * |
Potential Mitigations
References
- http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/group-123-goes-wild.html
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102893
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040318
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0285
- https://blog.morphisec.com/flash-exploit-cve-2018-4878-spotted-in-the-wild-massive-malspam-campaign
- https://github.com/InQuest/malware-samples/tree/master/CVE-2018-4878-Adobe-Flash-DRM-UAF-0day
- https://github.com/vysec/CVE-2018-4878
- https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-03.html
- https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/hackers-bypassed-adobe-flash-protection-mechanism/
- https://threatpost.com/adobe-flash-player-zero-day-spotted-in-the-wild/129742/
- https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/adobe-flash-vulnerability-reappears-in-malicious-word-files/d/d-id/1331139
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44412/
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2018/02/attacks-leveraging-adobe-zero-day.html
- https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/vulnerabilities-and-exploits/north-korean-hackers-allegedly-exploit-adobe-flash-player-vulnerability-cve-2018-4878-against-south-korean-targets
- http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/group-123-goes-wild.html
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102893
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040318
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0285
- https://blog.morphisec.com/flash-exploit-cve-2018-4878-spotted-in-the-wild-massive-malspam-campaign
- https://github.com/InQuest/malware-samples/tree/master/CVE-2018-4878-Adobe-Flash-DRM-UAF-0day
- https://github.com/vysec/CVE-2018-4878
- https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-03.html
- https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/hackers-bypassed-adobe-flash-protection-mechanism/
- https://threatpost.com/adobe-flash-player-zero-day-spotted-in-the-wild/129742/
- https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/adobe-flash-vulnerability-reappears-in-malicious-word-files/d/d-id/1331139
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44412/
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2018/02/attacks-leveraging-adobe-zero-day.html
- https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/vulnerabilities-and-exploits/north-korean-hackers-allegedly-exploit-adobe-flash-player-vulnerability-cve-2018-4878-against-south-korean-targets
- https://github.com/cisagov/vulnrichment/issues/196
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-4878