Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

Serious Flaws Found in 7-Zip File Archiver

An update released this week for the open source file archiver 7-Zip patches a couple of serious vulnerabilities discovered by researchers of Cisco’s Talos group.

An update released this week for the open source file archiver 7-Zip patches a couple of serious vulnerabilities discovered by researchers of Cisco’s Talos group.

7-Zip, which is known for its high compression ratio and ability to handle a large number of archive formats, is used in many products, including antivirus software and security appliances. However, some developers might not be aware that they are using the vulnerable library.

According to Cisco, 7-Zip is plagued by a couple of serious vulnerabilities caused by the lack of proper data input validation.

One of the flaws, tracked as CVE-2016-2335, is related to the way 7-Zip handles Universal Disk Format (UDF) files. An attacker can use a specially crafted file to trigger an out-of-bounds read that can cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. In some circumstances, an attacker might also be able to exploit the vulnerability to execute arbitrary code. 

The second vulnerability, identified as CVE-2016-2334, is a heap overflow related to the handling of Zlib files. Cisco said an attacker can exploit this weakness for arbitrary code execution.

Cisco reported the vulnerabilities to 7-Zip developer Igor Pavlov on March 3. The issues were patched on Tuesday with the release of 7-Zip 16.00.

“Sadly, many security vulnerabilities arise from applications which fail to properly validate their input data. Both of these 7-Zip vulnerabilities resulted from flawed input validation,” explained Cisco’s Jaeson Schultz. “Because data can come from a potentially untrusted source, data input validation is of critical importance to all applications’ security.”

7-Zip is not the only open source compression tool analyzed by Cisco researchers. In March, Talos published advisories describing an arbitrary code execution vulnerability affecting the Lhasa library.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related Reading: Remote Code Execution Flaw Patched in glibc Library

Related Reading: “Libotr” Library Flaw Exposes Popular IM Apps

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing 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.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Data Breaches

OpenAI has confirmed a ChatGPT data breach on the same day a security firm reported seeing the use of a component affected by an...

IoT Security

A group of seven security researchers have discovered numerous vulnerabilities in vehicles from 16 car makers, including bugs that allowed them to control car...

Vulnerabilities

A researcher at IOActive discovered that home security systems from SimpliSafe are plagued by a vulnerability that allows tech savvy burglars to remotely disable...

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Vulnerabilities

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft warns vulnerability (CVE-2023-23397) could lead to exploitation before an email is viewed in the Preview Pane.

Vulnerabilities

The latest Chrome update brings patches for eight vulnerabilities, including seven reported by external researchers.