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                     Secunia Research 07/06/2012

                   - Network Instruments Observer -
                 - SNMP Processing Buffer Overflows -

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Table of Contents

Affected Software....................................................1
Severity.............................................................2
Vendor's Description of Software.....................................3
Description of Vulnerability.........................................4
Solution.............................................................5
Time Table...........................................................6
Credits..............................................................7
References...........................................................8
About Secunia........................................................9
Verification........................................................10

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1) Affected Software 

* Observer version 15.1 Build 0007.0000

NOTE: Other versions may also be affected.

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2) Severity 

Rating: Moderately critical
Impact: System access
Where:  From local network

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3) Vendor's Description of Software 

"Our complete solution set not only provides the deepest drill-down
into network problems, it also provides back-in-time analysis,
reporting, trending, alarms, application tools, route monitoring,
and more."

Product Link:
http://www.networkinstruments.com/products/observer/index.html

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4) Description of Vulnerability

Secunia Research has discovered two vulnerabilities in Network
Instruments Observer, which can be exploited by malicious people to
compromise a vulnerable system.

1) A boundary error in the "CSnmp::DecodePacket()" method (NISNMP.DLL)
when processing the community string can be exploited to cause a
heap-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted SNMP datagram.

2) An error in the "CSnmp::DecodePacket()" method (NISNMP.DLL) when
processing an Object Identifier (OID) can be exploited to cause a
heap-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted Trap PDU (0xA4)
SNMP datagram sent to UDP port 162.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities allows execution of
arbitrary code, but may require the attacker to enumerate or guess
the SNMP port.

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5) Solution 

Restrict access to trusted hosts only.

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6) Time Table 

09/03/2012 - Requested security contact.
15/03/2012 - 2nd security contact request.
07/06/2012 - Public disclosure.

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7) Credits 

Discovered by Dmitriy Pletnev, Secunia Research.

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8) References

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has not yet
assigned a CVE identifier for the vulnerabilities.

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9) About Secunia

Secunia offers vulnerability management solutions to corporate
customers with verified and reliable vulnerability intelligence
relevant to their specific system configuration:

http://secunia.com/advisories/business_solutions/

Secunia also provides a publicly accessible and comprehensive advisory
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individuals, who are interested in or concerned about IT-security.

http://secunia.com/advisories/

Secunia believes that it is important to support the community and to
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security and reliability of software in general:

http://secunia.com/secunia_research/

Secunia regularly hires new skilled team members. Check the URL below
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Secunia offers a FREE mailing list called Secunia Security Advisories:

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10) Verification 

Please verify this advisory by visiting the Secunia website:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2012-21/

Complete list of vulnerability reports published by Secunia Research:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/

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