RealPlayer, Helix Player: Format string vulnerability

Background

RealPlayer is a multimedia player capable of handling multiple multimedia file formats. Helix Player is an open source media player for Linux.

Description

“c0ntex” reported that RealPlayer and Helix Player suffer from a heap overflow.

Impact

By enticing a user to play a specially crafted realpix (.rp) or realtext (.rt) file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running the application.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All RealPlayer users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=media-video/realplayer-10.0.6"

Note to Helix Player users: There is currently no stable secure Helix Player package. Affected users should remove the package until an updated Helix Player package is released.