A researcher has identified a stack buffer overflow vulnerability in Honeywell’s OPOS (OLE for Retail Point-of-Sale) Suite, a solution that provides a standard programming interface for the integration of PoS hardware into retail PoS systems based on Microsoft Windows.
According to an advisory published on Friday by the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University (CERT/CC), the security hole affects Honeywell OPOS versions prior to 1.13.4.15. Honeywell Scanning & Mobility, which specializes in the manufacturing of high-performance image- and laser- based data collection hardware, released OPOS 1.13.4.15 to address the problem.
The stack buffer overflow vulnerability exists in “HWOPOSScale.ocx” and “HWOPOSSCANNER.ocx.” Because the same component is affected in both cases, only one CVE identifier has been assigned (CVE-2014-8269).
“In both HWOPOSScale.ocx and HWOPOSSCANNER.ocx, the controls do not check the length of an attacker-supplied string to the Open method before copying it into a fixed length buffer on the stack. This allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser process,” CERT/CC noted in its advisory.
While the vulnerability can be exploited for remote code execution, the attack only works if the attacker can trick the victim into visiting a malicious page or opening a malicious file.
According to HP’s Zero Day Initiative, the flaw was discovered by Ariele Caltabiano (kimiya), and it was reported to Honeywell on October 16. HP’s TippingPoint Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) has been updated to protect users against attacks exploiting this stack buffer overflow bug.
Honeywell OPOS Suite version 1.13.4.15 is available for download on the vendor’s website.
PoS security is a topic that has made numerous headlines over the past period. Malware authors are busy developing all sorts of new threats designed to target such systems, and cybercriminals are successfully leveraging them to steal valuable payment card data.
One interesting piece of malware discovered recently is “d4re|dev1|,” which has been used by malicious actors to target e-kiosks.
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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