Zero-day vulnerability in Windows

Improper input validation
CVE-2014-4114

The zero-day vulnerability is being claimed to have been used in early September in possible campaigns against NATO, Ukrainian government organizations, Western European government organization, Energy Sector firms (specifically in Poland), European telecommunications firms, United States academic organizations.
Files in the SandWorm exploit hilighted by iSIGHT Partners include a malicious executable from a known malware family, namely the BlackEnergy Trojan.

Known malware:

Dyreza Trojan.
SandWorm
BlackEnergy Trojan.

Vulnerability details

Advisory: SB2014101403 - Remote code execution in Microsoft Windows

Vulnerable component: Windows

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-4114

CVSSv3 score: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

CWE-ID: CWE-20 - Improper input validation

Description:

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.

The weakness exists due to an error when processing OLE objects. A remote attacker can create a specially crafted OLE object, attach it to a document (e.g. PowerPoint file), trick the victim into opening it and execute arbitrary code with privileges of the current user.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability results in arbitrary code execution on the vulnerable system.

Note: the vulnerability was being actively exploited.

Known APT campaigns:

Sandworm - attacks against NATO, European government organizations, and U.S. academic organizations

The campaign goes back to December 2013.

The hackers used Sandworm malware.

Public Exploits:

- Microsoft Windows - OLE Package Manager Code Execution (MS14-060) (Metasploit) [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Windows - OLE Package Manager Code Execution (MS14-064) (Metasploit) [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Windows - OLE Remote Code Execution 'Sandworm' Exploit (MS14-060) [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Windows - OLE Package Manager SandWorm Exploit [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Windows - OLE Package Manager Code Execution (via Python) (MS14-064) (Metasploit) [Exploit-DB]

- Microsoft Office 2007 / 2010 - OLE Arbitrary Command Execution [Exploit-DB]

External links:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms14-060
http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/an-analysis-of-windows-zero-day-vulnerabi...
https://citizenlab.org/2015/06/targeted-attacks-against-tibetan-and-hong-kong-groups-exploiting-cve-...
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/70894/windows-ole-vulnerability-cve-2014-4114-sandworm
http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/microsoft-windows-zero-day_13.html
https://www.cyphort.com/cve-2014-4114-sandworm-worm/
https://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2014-102322-3150-99
https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/sandworm-windows-zero-day-vulnerability-being-actively-exploi...
https://threatpost.com/dyreza-banker-trojan-attackers-exploiting-cve-2014-4114-windows-flaw/109071/

About zero-day vulnerabilities

Zero-day vulnerability is an undisclosed vulnerability in software that hackers can exploit to compromise computer programs, gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, penetrate networks, etc. We consider vulnerability a zero-day when there is no solution provided from software vendor and the vulnerability is being actively exploited by malicious actors.

Zero-day candidate is a potential zero-day vulnerability in software which might have been used in targeted attacks, however there is no evidence to support this suggestion.