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AOL ICQ in hacker risk alert

Buffer overflow needs to be slayed

A remotely exploitable buffer overflow glitch poses a risk for AOL ICQ users who have failed to apply a security fix, CERT warned yesterday.

It says attackers who are able to exploit the vulnerability may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the victim user.

An exploit is known to exist, but it is not believed to be widely distributed. Nor is there any evidence of crackers scanning the Internet in search of vulnerable machines.

Since ICQ is used by an estimated 122 million users, the vulnerability is still a concern.

The buffer overflow, which affects AOL Mirabilis ICQ Versions 2001A and prior, occurs during the processing of a Voice, Video & Games feature request message.

As with the AOL Instant Messenger AIM vulnerability (discovered earlier this month), AOL has modified the ICQ server infrastructure to filter malicious messages that attempt to exploit this vulnerability. However exploiting the vulnerability through other means (man-in-the-middle attacks, third-party ICQ servers, DNS spoofing, network sniffing, etc.) may still be possible.

AOL Time Warner is recommending all users of vulnerable versions of ICQ upgrade to 2001B Beta v5.18 Build #3659. ®

External links

CERT Advisory: buffer overflow in AOL ICQ

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