MPlayer, VLC Media Player Hit By Critical Vulnerability (hackread.com)

A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been spotted in the LIVE555 media streaming library used by popular media players such as VLC and MPlayer. "Maintained by the company Live Networks, the library works with RTP / RTCP, RTSP or SIP protocols, with the ability to process video and audio formats such as MPEG, H.265, H.264, H.263 +, VP8, DV, JPEG, MPEG, AAC, AMR, AC-3, and Vorbis," reports Hackread. From the report: These findings (CVE-2018-4013) have left millions of users of media players vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to Lilith Wyatt, a researcher at the Cisco Talos Intelligence Group. In this case, the flaw lies in the HTTP packet parsing functionality, which analyzes HTTP headers for RTSP tunneling over HTTP, explains. An update has already been issued to address the vulnerability. Therefore, if you are using any of the vulnerable media players make sure they are updated to the latest version.

Comments

No, it doesn't affect *any* media player

[Ross Finlayson]

The bug - which has now been fixed in the LIVE555 library (with the fix already reported to Cisco) - affected only the LIVE555 library's implementation of a RTSP *server*. It doesn't affect the implementation of a RTSP *client*, which is the only part of the LIVE555 library that VLC and MPlayer use. (VLC does have an embedded RTSP server, but that uses a separate implementation, not LIVE555's.)

(I know this because I'm the author of the LIVE555 software :-)