Overview
A vulnerability has been reported in the default URI protocol handler in Apple's Mac OS X help system. Exploitation of this vulnerability may permit a remote attacker to execute arbitrary scripts on the local system.
Description
A vulnerability has been reported in Apple's Mac OS X runscript function of the Help.app application. Using the "help://" URI handler, a remote attacker may be able to create an HTML file that will execute local scripts on the target user's system. If exploited conjunction with VU#210606, a remote attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code of the attacker's choosing. Browsers or other applications supporting this help system URI handler enabled by default on Mac OS X have been reported to be vulnerable. |
Impact
A remote attacker may be able to run arbitrary files with interpretable script on a vulnerable system. |
Solution
Download updated software per Apple's Security Update notice: * Apple's Software Downloads web site: |
According to a posting on Secunia, users may be able to mitigate the potential impact of this reported vulnerability by changing the protocol helpers (applications) for URI handlers which are not required, (e.g., disable "help://" execution). |
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental |
References
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Kang for reporting this vulnerability.
This document was written by Jason A Rafail and is based on information from Secunia.com and SecurityTracker.com.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2004-0486 |
| Severity Metric: | 19.89 |
| Date Public: | 2004-05-17 |
| Date First Published: | 2004-05-21 |
| Date Last Updated: | 2004-05-24 17:43 UTC |
| Document Revision: | 12 |