EViews is a software for econometric and statistical analysis.
From vendor's website:
"Estimation, forecasting, statistical analysis, graphics, simulation,
data management, all in a powerful, graphical object-oriented
interface."
The program uses a particular function for allocating memory for the
arrays used in the WF1 files.
In short if the reallocation fails it's possible to write a memory
pointer and a NULL in the expected last two positions of the
"supposedly" reallocated array so with possibilities of corrupting
memory zones almost arbitrarialy:
Heap overflow/corruption (no additional analysis) during the handling
of the PRG files:
00B90BF4 |. 8B1496 MOV EDX,DWORD PTR DS:[ESI+EDX*4]
00B90BF7 |. EB 07 JMP SHORT EViews7.00B90C00 ; EDX is controlled
00B90BF9 |> 397A 04 /CMP DWORD PTR DS:[EDX+4],EDI ; EDI is usually zero
00B90BFC |. 74 0E |JE SHORT EViews7.00B90C0C
00B90BFE |. 8B12 |MOV EDX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDX]
00B90C00 |> 85D2 TEST EDX,EDX
00B90C02 |.^75 F5 \JNZ SHORT EViews7.00B90BF9
00B90C04 |. 33C0 XOR EAX,EAX
00B90C06 |> 5F POP EDI
00B90C07 |> 5E POP ESI
00B90C08 |. 5D POP EBP
00B90C09 |. C2 0400 RETN 4
00B90C0C |> 8B42 08 MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDX+8] ; get the new value
00B90C0F \.^EB F5 JMP SHORT EViews7.00B90C06
...
00B295D8 |. E8 EF750600 CALL EViews7.00B90BCC ; the above function
00B295DD |. 85C0 TEST EAX,EAX
00B295DF |. 74 14 JE SHORT EViews7.00B295F5
00B295E1 |. 8378 4C 00 CMP DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+4C],0
00B295E5 |. 74 0E JE SHORT EViews7.00B295F5
00B295E7 |. 8B48 4C MOV ECX,DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+4C]
00B295EA |. 8B01 MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[ECX]
00B295EC |. 6A 00 PUSH 0
00B295EE |. 56 PUSH ESI
00B295EF |. FF90 9C000000 CALL DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+9C] ; code execution
The only "obstacle" to the exploitation could be EDI handled at address
00B54CE5 because sometimes it's zero and other times it isn't but my
proof-of-concept and analysis is absolutely far from being optimized so
I there are for sure ways to control it better and bypassing the
comparison.