RealPlayer 10 beta, RealOne Player for Mac OS X affected by security issue

eEye Digital Security says it discovered a critical vulnerability in RealPlayer. The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to reliably overwrite heap memory with arbitrary data and execute arbitrary code in the context of the user who executed the player.

A statement reads "This specific flaw exists within the pnen3260.dll file used by RealPlayer. By specially crafting a malformed .rm movie file along with a SMIL file, a direct heap overwrite is triggered, and reliable code execution is then possible."

In the case of Mac OS X, users only vulnerable if they play a local Real media file in either Real Player 10 Beta or RealOne Player.

RealNetworks has since released a patch for this vulnerability. The patch is available via the "Check for Update" menu item under the application menu (RealOne Player) in the menu bar. Real Player 10 (non-beta) is not affected by this issue.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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