Apple iOS up to 9.0 Grand Central Dispatch memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Apple iOS up to 9.0. This impacts an unknown function of the component Grand Central Dispatch. Performing a manipulation results in memory corruption. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2015-6989. No exploit exists. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Apple iOS up to 9.0 (Smartphone Operating System). It has been classified as critical. This affects an unknown code of the component Grand Central Dispatch. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Grand Central Dispatch in Apple iOS before 9.1, OS X before 10.11.1, and watchOS before 2.0.1 allows attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted package that is mishandled during dispatch calls.

The weakness was disclosed 10/21/2015 with Apple as HT205370 as confirmed advisory (Website). It is possible to read the advisory at support.apple.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2015-6989 since 09/16/2015. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 11/19/2024). It is expected to see the exploit prices for this product increasing in the near future. The advisory points out:

A memory corruption issue existed when handling dispatch calls. This issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 86654 (Mac OS X < 10.11.1 Multiple Vulnerabilities), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment. It is assigned to the family MacOS X Local Security Checks. The commercial vulnerability scanner Qualys is able to test this issue with plugin 124182 (Apple Mac OS X Security Update 2015-007 Not Installed (APPLE-SA-2015-10-21-4)).

Upgrading to version 9.1 eliminates this vulnerability. A possible mitigation has been published immediately after the disclosure of the vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (86654). The entries VDB-77709, VDB-78724, VDB-78725 and VDB-78727 are pretty similar. Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Smartphone Operating System

Vendor

• Apple

Name

• iOS

Version

• 9.0

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.apple.com/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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