CVE-2017-6996 in watchOS
Summary
by MITRE
An issue was discovered in certain Apple products. iOS before 10.3.2 is affected. tvOS before 10.2.1 is affected. watchOS before 3.2.2 is affected. The issue involves the "AVEVideoEncoder" component. It allows attackers to execute arbitrary code in a privileged context or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted app.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/20/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-6996 represents a critical security flaw within Apple's multimedia processing framework affecting multiple operating systems. This issue resides within the AVEVideoEncoder component which serves as a core video encoding engine responsible for processing multimedia content across iOS, tvOS, and watchOS platforms. The vulnerability manifests as a memory corruption flaw that can be exploited by malicious applications to gain elevated privileges or cause system instability. The affected versions include iOS 10.3.1 and earlier, tvOS 10.2.0 and earlier, and watchOS 3.2.1 and earlier, indicating this weakness has persisted across several major platform releases and represents a significant concern for users of these systems.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from improper input validation within the AVEVideoEncoder component when processing specially crafted video content. Attackers can exploit this weakness by developing a malicious application that feeds malformed video data to the encoder, triggering memory corruption conditions that allow for arbitrary code execution. This type of vulnerability falls under CWE-121, which describes stack-based buffer overflow conditions, and represents a privilege escalation vector that enables attackers to operate within the system's privileged execution context. The flaw operates at a low level within the operating system's multimedia framework, making it particularly dangerous as it can bypass standard security boundaries that typically protect against malicious code execution.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to users of affected Apple devices as it can be exploited through seemingly legitimate applications that process video content. The attack surface is broad since any application that utilizes the AVEVideoEncoder component for video processing could potentially serve as an exploitation vector. This includes not only native Apple applications but also third-party video editing tools, media players, and any software that handles video encoding operations. The potential impact ranges from unauthorized code execution that could lead to complete system compromise to denial of service conditions that render devices unusable. Security researchers have noted that the vulnerability can be particularly insidious because it operates within the system's core multimedia processing capabilities, making it difficult to detect and prevent through traditional security measures.
The mitigation strategy for CVE-2017-6996 centers on applying the official security updates released by Apple to address the underlying memory corruption issue. Users must upgrade to iOS 10.3.2, tvOS 10.2.1, or watchOS 3.2.2 respectively, as these versions contain patches that correct the input validation flaws in the AVEVideoEncoder component. System administrators and security professionals should prioritize deployment of these updates across all affected devices, particularly in enterprise environments where multiple Apple devices are in use. Additional protective measures include implementing application whitelisting policies that restrict the execution of untrusted video processing applications and monitoring for unusual system behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider network-level monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts that might involve malicious video content being transmitted or processed through affected systems, as outlined in the ATT&CK framework's techniques for privilege escalation and code execution. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches for multimedia frameworks and highlights the need for comprehensive security testing of core system components that handle user-supplied content.