The vulnerabilty was introduced on 07.27.2005, but publically disclosed later by Xiaobo Chen and Dan Caselden of FireEye.
The vulnerability has been exploited by the APTgroup behind the 2009 Aurora attack. The exploit uses a technique ROP (return-oriented-programming). According to FireEye, the attack has a link to the infrastructure used in Operation DeputyDog and Operation Ephemeral Hydra, which began in August and targeted organizations in Japan.
Vulnerability details
Advisory: SB2013111201 - Remote code execution in Microsoft Windows
Vulnerable component: InformationCardSigninHelper Class ActiveX control
CVE-ID: CVE-2013-3918
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-119 - Memory corruption
Description:
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system.
The weakness exists due to out-of-bounds memory access within InformationCardSigninHelper Class ActiveX control (icardie.dll). A remote attacker can create specially crafted Web page that passes an overly long string argument to vulnerable ActiveX component, trick the victim into visiting it, trigger memory corruption 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:
Operation Aurora
Operation Aurora is a series of cyber attacks conducted since mid-2009. Such name was given by Dmitri Alperovitch of McAfee.
The operation was discovered by Google in January, 2010 and is considered to have Chinese origin.
The hackers targeted not only Google but also Yahoo, Symantec, Juniper Networks, Adobe, Northrop Grumman ╨╕ Dow Chemical.
Symantec identified the group behind the operation "Elderwood", Dell Secureworks - "Beijing Group".Operation DeputyDog
The campaign began on August 19, 2013 and targeted Japanese organizations. According to FireEye researchers, who detected the campaign, the attack payload was connected to the host in Hong Kong and the malware тАУ to the host in South Korea.
Public Exploits:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer - CardSpaceClaimCollection ActiveX Integer Underflow (MS13-090) (Metasploit) [Exploit-DB]
External links:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms13-090.aspx
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2013/11/new-ie-zero-day-found-in-watering-hole-attack.h...
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2013/11/11/activex-control-issue-being-addressed-in-update-...
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/srd/2013/11/12/technical-details-of-the-targeted-attack-using-ie...
https://www.symantec.com/security_response/attacksignatures/detail.jsp?asid=27146
http://eromang.zataz.com/2015/12/23/cve-2013-3918-cardspaceclaimcollection-activex-integer-underflow...
http://www.darkreading.com/new-ie-vulnerability-found-in-the-wild-sophisticated-web-exploit-follows/...?
http://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-patches-vulnerability-attackers-used-target-ie-users
https://blog.threattrack.com/a-look-inside-a-cve-2013-3918-exploit/
https://www.fireeye.jp/content/dam/fireeye-www/global/en/current-threats/pdfs/wp-zero-day-attacks-in...
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ie-zero-day-used-by-cyber-arms-dealers-and-chinese-hackers/
https://support.ixiacom.com/about-us/news-events/corporate-blog/completing-deputydog-apt
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities---threats/fireeye-releases-2013-lab-performance-stats/d/d...