14 DAY TRIAL // Research In Motion has released security updates for BlackBerry OS and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) software in order to address two moderate and high risk vulnerabilities.
The vulnerability affecting BlackBerry devices consists of a denial of service condition that can crash the browser application.
It affects BlackBerry Device Software versions earlier than 6.0.0 and can be exploited by tricking users to visit a maliciously crafted Web page.
"When the BlackBerry device user views the page on a device running the affected BlackBerry Device Software, the browser application becomes unresponsive.
"The BlackBerry device subsequently terminates the browser, and the browser eventually restarts and displays an error message," RIM writes in its advisory.
The vulnerability has a score of 5.0 on the CVSS scale, which equates to a moderate risk because the DoS condition is only partial.
Meanwhile, the vulnerability patched in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is critical and caries a CVSS base score of 9.3 out of 10.
It stems from a buffer overflow error in the Attachment Service of the PDF distiller component. Exploitation involves tricking a user to open a specially crafted PDF file.
"While code execution is possible, an attack is more likely to result in the PDF rendering process terminating before it completes. "In the event of such an unexpected process termination, the PDF rendering process will restart automatically but will not resume processing the same PDF file," RIM explains.
The BlackBerry smartphone needs to be associated with a BES account and the malicious PDF can be served via email or from a website.
The affected software includes BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express version 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 for Microsoft Exchange and version 5.0.2 for IBM Lotus Domino, as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server versions 4.1.3 through 5.0.2 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino and versions 4.1.3 through 5.0.1 for Novell GroupWise. BlackBerry Professional Software version 4.1.4 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino is also affected.