Overview
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in a component of Apple's Mac OS X operating system that handles rich text files.
Description
| The Cocoa Application Framework (also referred to as the Application Kit, or AppKit) is one of the core Cocoa frameworks supplied with Apple's Mac OS X operating system. It provides functionality and associated application program interfaces (APIs) for applications, including objects for graphical user interfaces (GUIs), event-handling mechanisms, application services, and drawing and image composition facilities. A buffer overflow exists in the AppKit component designed to handle rich text (.rtf) files. This vulnerability affects applications that use AppKit (such as TextEdit) to open .rtf files. A maliciously crafted .rtf file could be used to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system. | 
Impact
| An attacker with the ability to supply a maliciously crafted .rtf file could execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system. The attacker-supplied code would be executed with the privileges of the user opening the malicious file. | 
Solution
| Apply a patch | 
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector | 
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental | 
References
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Apple Product Security for reporting this vulnerability.
This document was written by Chad R Dougherty based on information supplied by Apple.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2005-2501 | 
| Severity Metric: | 15.49 | 
| Date Public: | 2005-08-15 | 
| Date First Published: | 2005-08-17 | 
| Date Last Updated: | 2005-08-18 19:41 UTC | 
| Document Revision: | 11 |