CVE-2011-3251 in QuickTime
Summary
by MITRE
Apple QuickTime before 7.7.1 on Windows allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) via crafted TKHD atoms in a QuickTime movie file.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/24/2021
Apple QuickTime version 7.7.1 and earlier on Windows platforms contained a critical memory corruption vulnerability that enabled remote code execution and denial of service attacks through maliciously crafted TKHD atoms within QuickTime movie files. This vulnerability represents a classic buffer overflow condition that occurs during the parsing of movie metadata, specifically within the Track Header atom structure that defines track properties in QuickTime media files. The flaw resides in how the QuickTime player processes the TKHD atom, which contains essential track information including track dimensions, duration, and transformation matrices. When an attacker crafts a malicious QuickTime file with oversized or malformed TKHD atom data, the application fails to properly validate input boundaries during parsing operations, leading to memory corruption that can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the affected user.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability aligns with CWE-121, which describes stack-based buffer overflow conditions, and CWE-122, which covers heap-based buffer overflow scenarios. The vulnerability demonstrates characteristics of a memory safety issue where the application does not properly check the length of incoming data before copying it into fixed-size buffers. This particular flaw affects the Windows implementation of QuickTime and does not impact other operating systems, highlighting platform-specific memory management inconsistencies in the application's codebase. The attack vector requires the victim to open a specially crafted QuickTime movie file, making this a typical client-side exploit that relies on social engineering or phishing techniques to deliver malicious content. The vulnerability can result in complete system compromise if successful, as attackers can leverage the memory corruption to inject and execute malicious code within the context of the QuickTime player process.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability created significant security concerns for organizations relying on QuickTime for media playback, particularly in environments where users might encounter untrusted media content. The vulnerability's remote exploit capability meant that attackers could deliver malicious payloads through email attachments, web downloads, or compromised websites without requiring local access to the target system. The memory corruption could manifest as application crashes, system instability, or complete system compromise depending on the exploitation success. Organizations using QuickTime for media playback in corporate environments faced potential exposure to advanced persistent threats that could leverage this vulnerability to establish persistent access to their networks. The vulnerability also highlighted the risks associated with legacy media players that receive limited security updates, particularly in enterprise environments where older software versions are maintained for compatibility reasons.
The recommended mitigation strategy for this vulnerability involved immediate deployment of Apple's security update 7.7.1, which patched the TKHD atom parsing logic to properly validate input data before processing. Organizations should have implemented network-based controls such as content filtering to prevent download of QuickTime files from untrusted sources, and conducted thorough vulnerability assessments to identify systems running affected QuickTime versions. Security teams needed to establish incident response procedures for handling potential exploitation attempts, including monitoring network traffic for suspicious QuickTime file transfers and implementing endpoint protection measures that could detect and block malicious media files. The vulnerability also underscored the importance of maintaining current security patches for multimedia applications and establishing policies for decommissioning legacy software that no longer receives security updates, aligning with ATT&CK technique T1195 for phishing attacks and T1059 for command and scripting interpreter usage. Organizations should have considered alternative media players that provided better security track records and more frequent update cycles to reduce their exposure to similar vulnerabilities in the future.