Apple Patches iOS, Safari and MacOS

Published: 2018-04-24
Last Updated: 2018-04-24 19:08:55 UTC
by Johannes Ullrich (Version: 1)
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Apple today released updated for Safari, macOS and iOS. The patches fix 4 different vulnerabilities. The most severe of the vulnerabilities affect WebKit. These vulnerablities could be exploited to execute arbitrary code if a user visits a malicous site.

Note that WebKit is also included in tvOS and watchOS. A patch release for these operating systems may be imminent and I will update this article as I see them.

Vulnerability Overview

CVE iOS MacOS/Safari Severity
CVE-2018-4200 yes yes critical
CVE-2018-4204 yes yes critical
CVE-2018-4206 yes yes important
CVE-2018-4187 yes yes important

Safari 11.1

This update patches two vulnerabilities in WebKit. This update also applies to older still supported versions of OS X / MacOS (10.11/12, El Capitan, Sierra) in addition to the latest version ( High Sierra, 10.13.4). iOS patches the same WebKit vulnerablities.

Vulnerability Impact Description CVE
WebKit Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management. CVE-2018-4200
WebKit Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling. CVE-2018-4204

MacOS Security update 2018-001 for macOS High Sierra 10.13

For MacOS High Sierra (10.13), Apple patches two vulnerabilities. One fixes a vulnerability in Crash Reporter, the second one fixes a vulnerability in how URL links are displayed.

Vulnerability Impact Description CVE
Crash Reporter An application may be able to gain elevated privileges A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved error handling. CVE-2018-4206
LinkPresentation Processing a maliciously crafted text message may lead to UI spoofing A spoofing issue existed in the handling of URLs. This issue was addressed with improved input validation. CVE-2018-4187

iOS 11.3.1

4 Vulnerabilities are being patched in iOS 11.3. The update applies to iPhone 5s and later, iPad Air and later, and iPod touch 6th generation.

The iOS update is essentially the sum of the macOS and Safari update.

Vulnerability Impact Description CVE
Crash Reporter An application may be able to gain elevated privileges A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved error handling. CVE-2018-4206
LinkPresentation Processing a maliciously crafted text message may lead to UI spoofing A spoofing issue existed in the handling of URLs. This issue was addressed with improved input validation. CVE-2018-4187
WebKit Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management. CVE-2018-4200
WebKit Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling. CVE-2018-4204

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Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D. , Dean of Research, SANS Technology Institute
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The real value of an IOC?

Published: 2018-04-24
Last Updated: 2018-04-24 06:42:38 UTC
by Xavier Mertens (Version: 1)
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When a new malware sample is analysed by a security researcher, details are usually posted online with details of the behaviour and, based on this, a list of IOCs or “Indicators of Compromise” is published. Those indicators are pieces of technical information that, if detected on your network or hosts, may indicate that it has been compromised or at least something suspicious occurred. Classic IOCs are domain names, IP addresses, hashes (MD5, SHA1, SHA256), email addresses, ports, URLs, filenames, processes, muteness, services, etc… But they can also be non-IT related stuff like a bank account, a Bitcoin wallet or a phone number even… the name of a person.

I would like to insist on the verb “may indicate” in the sentence above. Indeed, for some time, we are facing what I'm calling a race of IOCs. For many commercial organizations, it became mandatory to have a presence online and to communicate about new threats as much as possible. This lead to an increase in the amount of (good) IOCs generated. Let’s take an example with my own MISP[1] instance (“Malware Information Sharing Platform”) which is a tool dedicated to the processing of indicators of compromise. I had a quick look at the amount of IOCs stored in my database.

The total of IOCs is 1.052.922. Here is an overview of IOCs received for the last 12 months. Even, if there is a decrease of IOCs for a few months, I'm still getting thousands of new records monthly:

The goal of such database is to be used to perform searches (or better, retro-searches) operations with other tools like an IDS or a SIEM. For example, I’m exporting IOCs from my MISP into my OSSEC[2], my IDS[3] and Splunk. How to handle a still growing number of IOCs? The best situation is always to process all of them but, from a technical point of view, it is impossible. How to optimise them?

The first idea is to process IOCs relevant to your infrastructure. Like an IDS where some rules can be disabled (example: why to enable FTP rules if you don’t use the FTP protocol?), you can disable IOCs related to technologies that you don’t use. Always a little bit risky though. Basically, an IOC out of its context is less useful and today most of them are. Do you need IOCs related to JAVA RaT if you don’t have JAVA installed on your endpoints?

You can also work with "tags" or "label" to increase the value of IOCs. Here is an idea how they are handled by one of my customers. IOCs are exported from MISCP if:

  • They are tagged as TLP:RED (IOCs tagged TLP:RED by peers are very important in the business context of my customer)
  • They have been created during the last 30 days (to cover recent threats)
  • They are tagged as relevant by the on-duty Security Analyst (an example of a business targeted attack)

The last point implies a manual review of the newly received events in MISP. The Security Analyst, based on his/her knowledge, the current threats and his understanding of the organization business decides if a new event and its IOCs are relevant or now.

I like the approach of the incident handling tool TheHive[4] that uses two different names: When a security analyst is working on a case, he/she creates “observables” (the name speaks by itself) and, when investigations are completed, some observables can be converted to “IOC” and exported to a MISP event. Keep in mind, an IP address alone does not mean a lot but if you can link it to a domain or a hash, you increase your chances to detect malicious activities or compromisations.

And you? How do you optimise your IOCs? Feel free to share your thoughts.

[1] http://www.misp-project.org/
[2] https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/Hunting+for+Malicious+Files+with+MISP+OSSEC/21251/
[3] https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/Automatic+Hunting+for+Malicious+Files+Crossing+your+Network/23473/
[4] https://thehive-project.org/

Xavier Mertens (@xme)
ISC Handler - Freelance Security Consultant
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ISC Stormcast For Tuesday, April 24th 2018 https://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail.html?id=5967

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