Vulnerability Spotlight: Three vulnerabilities in HDF5 file format could lead to remote code execution

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered three vulnerabilities in a library that works with the HDF5 file format that could allow an attacker to execute remote code on a targeted device. These issues arise in the libhdf5 gif2h5 tool that’s normally used to convert a GIF file to the HDF5 format, commonly used to store large amounts of numerical data. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted, malicious file. TALOS-2022-1485 (CVE-2022-25972) and TALOS-2022-1486 (CVE-2022-25942) are out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities in the gif2h5 tool that trigger a specific crash, opening the door for code execution from the adversary. TALOS-2022-1487 (CVE-2022-26061) works similarly but is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability.

Cisco Talos is disclosing these vulnerabilities despite no official fix from HDF5 in adherence to the 90-day deadline outlined in Cisco’s vulnerability disclosure policy.

Users are encouraged to update these affected products as soon as possible: HDF5 Group libhdf5, version 1.10.4. Talos tested and confirmed these versions of the library could be exploited by these vulnerabilities. The following Snort rules will detect exploitation attempts against this vulnerability: 59296, 59297, 59300, 59301, 59303 and 59304. Additional rules may be released in the future and current rules are subject to change, pending additional vulnerability information. For the most current rule information, please refer to your Firepower Management Center or Snort.org.