Date December 20, 2005 Vulnerability The Symantec Antivirus Library provides file format support for virus analysis. During decompression of RAR files Symantec is vulnerable to multiple heap overflows allowing attackers complete control of the system(s) being protected. These vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely without user interaction in default configurations through common protocols such as SMTP. Impact Successful exploitation of Symantec protected systems allows attackers unauthorized control of data and related privileges. It also provides leverage for further network compromise. Symantec implementations are likely vulnerable in their default configuration. In default configurations users are likely vulnerable regardless of whether they choose to open or read the email. Affected Products Due to the library??s modular design and core functionality; it is likely this vulnerability affects a substantial portion of Symantec??s gateway, server, & client antivirus-enabled product lines on most platforms. In fact, the scope of this vulnerability is likely similar to the one described in the following link and also includes more current versions. http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/alerts/id/187 Further, this library is also licensed to a substantial number of venders with products/services that are likely affected. A small sample of these vendors can be found in the following link. http://www.symantec.com/partners/index.html Recommendation Disable scanning of RAR compressed files until the vulnerable code is fixed. Credit This vulnerability was discovered and researched by Alex Wheeler. Contact security (at) rem0te (dot) com [email concealed]