Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-018

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Title:      Visual Studio VB-TSQL Object Contains Unchecked Buffer
Date:       27 March 2001
Software:   Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Edition
Impact:     Run code of attacker's choice
Bulletin:   MS01-018

Microsoft encourages customers to review the Security Bulletin at: 
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-018.asp.
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Issue:
======

The VB-TSQL debugger object that ships with Visual Studio 6.0
Enterprise Edition has an  unchecked buffer in the code that
processes parameters for one of the object's methods.  Theobject can,
by design, be programmatically accessed remotely. If the object were
to be  referenced by a program that contained specially malformed
data within the parameter,  eitherof two outcomes would result. In
the less serious case, the attacker could cause the  object to fail
on the hosting machine. In the more serious case, the attacker could
exploit  the buffer overrun to run code of the attacker's choice on
the hosting machine. 

The debugger object (vbsdicli.exe) is installed by default with
Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise  Edition and runs in the context of the
interactively logged-on user. The attacker could only  execute a
successful attack if he knew that a user had the component installed
and that the  user was logged in at the time of the attack. 

Mitigating Factors:
===================

 - If best practices have been followed and ports 137-139 and 445
have
   been blocked at an organization's router or firewall, this attack
   could not be executed from the Internet.

 - There is no way to determine remotely if a machine has the
affected
   component installed. An attacker would need to successively target
   machines until he found one that was susceptible.

 - The vulnerability could only be exploited if an interactive user
   were logged on to the target machine at the time of the malicious
   user's attack.

 - Only the Enterprise Edition of Visual Studio 6.0 is affected.
   Visual Studio 6.0 Professional Edition is not affected.

Patch Availability:
===================

 - A patch is available to fix this vulnerability. Please read the 
   Security Bulletin
   http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms01-018.asp
   for information on obtaining this patch.

Acknowledgment:
===============

 - BindView's Razor Team (http://razor.bindview.com)

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