Zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player

Use-after-free
CVE-2018-15982

Vulnerability exploitation was spotted by several security companies. The attack was detected on November 29, 2018 and seems to be executed by a Ukrainian APT group UA-APT.

360 Core Security dubbed the attack "Operation Poison Needles".

Vulnerability details

Advisory: SB2018120508 - Multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player

Vulnerable component: Adobe Flash Player

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-15982

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

CWE-ID: CWE-416 - Use After Free

Description:

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to compromise vulnerable system.

The vulnerability exists due to a use-after-free error when processing SWF files. A remote attacker can create a specially crafted .swf file, trick the victim to open it and execute arbitrary code on system with privileges of the current user.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may allow an attacker to compromise vulnerable system.

Note: this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.

Known APT campaigns:

Operation Poison Needles

A targeted attack against Russian medical institution FSBI тАЬPolyclinic No.2тАЭ, affiliated to the Presidential Administration of Russia. The attack was spotted on the evening of November 29, 2018 by several threat intelligence companies.

A Microsoft Word document with embedded exploit for zero-day vulnerability was uploaded to VirusTotal from a Ukrainian IP address.

External links:

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.