VideoLan has released VLC Media Player 3.0.11, and it is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. In addition to bug fixes and improvements, this release also fixes a security vulnerability that could allow attackers to remotely execute commands or crash VLC on a vulnerable computer.
This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2020-13428 and is a "buffer overflow in VLC's H26X packetizer" that would allow attackers to execute commands under the same security level as the user if properly exploited.
According to VideoLan's security bulletin, this vulnerability can be exploited by creating a specially crafted file and tricking a user into opening it with VLC.
While VideoLan states that this vulnerability will most likely crash the player, they warn that it could be used by an attacker to execute commands under the security level of the user remotely.
If successful, a malicious third party could trigger either a crash of VLC or an arbitratry code execution with the privileges of the target user.
While these issues in themselves are most likely to just crash the player, we can't exclude that they could be combined to leak user informations or remotely execute code. ASLR and DEP help reduce the likelyness of code execution, but may be bypassed.
We have not seen exploits performing code execution through these vulnerability
Due to the severity of this vulnerability and the public disclosure of the problematic code, it is strongly advised that all users media player fixes severe remote execution
