Notepad++ 6.9.2 DLL Hijacking
Posted on 09 July 2016
Aloha, *npp.6.9.2.Installer.exe* loads and executes dwmapi.dll from its "application directory". For software downloaded with a web browser the applicationdirectory is typically the user's "Downloads" directory: see < https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/cert/2008/09/carpet-bombing-and-directory-poisoning.html >, <http://blog.acrossecurity.com/2012/02/downloads-folder-binary-planting.html > and <http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Aug/134> for "prior art" about this well-known and well-documented vulnerability. If an attacker places one of the above named DLL in the user's "Downloads" directory (for example per "drive-by download" or "social engineering") this vulnerability becomes a remote code execution. Notepad++ contains a DLL hijacking vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system. This vulnerability exists due to some DLL file is loaded by ‘npp.6.9.2.Installer.exe’ improperly. And it allows an attacker to load this DLL file of the attacker’s choosing that could execute arbitrary code without the user's knowledge. Affected Product: Notepad++ 6.9.2 Download Link: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/notepad-6.9.2-released.html Impact Attacker can exploit the vulnerability to load a DLL file of the attacker's choosing that could execute arbitrary code. This may help attacker to Successful exploits the system if user creates shell as a DLL. Vulnerability Scoring Details The vulnerability classification has been performed by using the CVSSv2 scoring system (http://www.first.org/cvss/). Base Score: 7.2 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C) Proof of concept/demonstration: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Create malicious dll file and save it as dwmapi.dll in your "Downloads" directory. 2. Download npp.6.9.2.Installer.exe from https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.9.2.html and save it in your "Downloads" directory. 3. Execute npp.6.9.2.Installer.exe from your "Downloads" directory. 4. Malicious dll file gets executed. Chao!! Himanshu Mehta
