CVE-2018-12819 in Digital Editions
Summary
by MITRE
Adobe Digital Editions versions 4.5.8 and below have an out of bounds read vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to information disclosure.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/05/2020
Adobe Digital Editions version 4.5.8 and earlier contains a critical out of bounds read vulnerability that stems from insufficient input validation within the application's handling of digital content files. This vulnerability falls under the CWE-129 weakness category, specifically addressing inadequate bounds checking in input validation processes. The flaw occurs when the application processes malformed or specially crafted ebook files without proper boundary verification, allowing an attacker to trigger memory access violations that may expose sensitive data from adjacent memory locations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the application's failure to validate array indices or buffer limits when parsing ebook metadata or content structures. When processing maliciously formatted files, the software attempts to read memory beyond allocated boundaries, potentially exposing confidential information such as stack contents, heap data, or other sensitive application memory segments. This type of vulnerability represents a classic example of memory safety issues that have been extensively documented in the cybersecurity community and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059.007 for exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure, as the exposed memory contents could contain encryption keys, user credentials, session tokens, or other sensitive data that could be leveraged for further attacks. Attackers could potentially use this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to protected content or exploit the information disclosure to facilitate more sophisticated attacks against the target system or user environment. The vulnerability affects users who process untrusted ebook files, making it particularly dangerous in scenarios involving email attachments, web downloads, or file sharing environments where content integrity cannot be guaranteed.
Organizations and individual users should immediately upgrade to Adobe Digital Editions version 4.5.9 or later, which contains the necessary patches to address this out of bounds read vulnerability. System administrators should implement application whitelisting policies to prevent execution of untrusted ebook files and consider deploying network monitoring solutions to detect potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of maintaining up-to-date software versions and implementing proper input validation mechanisms as outlined in secure coding practices recommended by the OWASP Top Ten project. Additionally, users should exercise caution when processing ebook files from untrusted sources and maintain regular security updates across all digital content management applications to prevent similar vulnerabilities from being exploited in the future.