"SAS for Windows" is part of a software for statistical analysis, data-mining and business intelligence. The software was shipped by the manufacturer SAS Institute Inc. containing a critical vulnerability [1]. The vulnerabilities were discovered in a routine security crash test by experts of the SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab ( http://www.sec-consult.com).
The vulnerability enables state-sponsored or criminal hackers to create a malicious SAS-file, which gives an attacker full control over the attacked computer if the file gets processed with "SAS for Windows". An attacker can send phishing mails containing such a manipulated SAS-file to subsequently attack the internal corporate network via a compromised client computer.
The experts of the SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab were able to successfully exploit the vulnerability during a crash test, bypass current mitigation techniques on a standard Windows 7 installation (including firewall and anti-virus software) and control the attacked computer remotely over the Internet.
SEC Consult experts recommend immediately installing the update, released by the vendor to counter these vulnerabilities [2]. SEC Consult advises that customers of SAS products should demand from the vendor exhaustive security tests by
(European) security experts before the implementation of the respective software product.
[1] https://www.sec-consult.com/en/Vulnerability-Lab/Advisories.htm
[2]
SAS 9.4 TS 1M0 - http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/HF2/L08.html#L08004
SAS 9.3 TS 1M2 - http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/HF2/I22.html#I22069
SAS 9.2 TS 2M3 - http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/HF2/B25.html#B25260