Category Archives: Emerging Threats

Symantec Backup Exec DoS and Phishing Survey

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Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers is vulnerable to denial of service. There are two different issues that could cause a denial of service, one being a NULL pointer reference that can cause the backup exec job engine service to crash with a specially crafted packet sent to TCP port 5633. Two integer overflows within the engine, triggered by a specially crafted packet to port 5633 can cause the service to enter an infinite loop consuming large amounts of CPU time. Backup Exec version 11d build 11.0.7170 and version 11d build 11.0.6.6235 are affected. Users should upgrade to versions Build 11.0.7170 and Build 11.0.6235 respectively.

We found a survey published today that some of you may be interested in. Cloudmark Inc., an anti-spam, anti-phishing outfit, released a survey about phishing sites, and the effects on the perception of the company being phished. It seems that some people (42% of the people surveyed) would have their trust in the brand “greatly reduced” after receiving a phishing email claiming to be from them. Now, of course the phishing email has absolutely nothing to do with the actual company, but it still seems to leave an impression. If the results of this survey can be trusted, it looks like some consumers need to be educated about phishing attacks and the relation to the brand.

IBM Lotus Notes Vulnerabilities

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Today a vulnerability was disclosed that effects IBM Lotus Notes. The issue effects versions 5.x, 6.x, 7.x and 8.x. Specifically, the issue lies within the Lotus Notes viewer, a specially crafted Lotus Notes viewer file (.123 extension) could cause a buffer overflow within the viewer and lead to the execution of arbitrary code.

If you have Lotus Notes 7.x or 8.x, IBM has an update. If you are using version 6.x, or 5.x, there is currently no update. IBM is currently working on an update for 6.x, but will not release one for 5.x. However, a workaround for these versions is to disable the viewer. If the viewer is disabled, then the files will not be opened within Lotus Notes viewer.

New Releases of Firefox and SeaMonkey

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The latest releases of Firefox (2.0.0.10) and SeaMonkey (1.1.7) address three recently discovered vulnerabilities. The first is a race condition in window.location that can allow Cross-site scripting via referer-spoofing. The second is a memory corruption issue which could lead to the execution of arbitrary code. The third is a jar URI scheme vulnerability that can also allow Cross-site scripting to occur.

You should update if you are using one of these products.

For for the original notifications travel over to Mozilla’s known vulnerabilities site

Quicktime 7.2/7.3 RTSP Exploits

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Quicktime versions 7.2 and 7.3 are vulnerable to a stack based overflow. This vulnerability is caused by a boundary error when processing RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) replies. This can be exploited by sending a specially crafted RTSP reply with a long “Content-Type” header. Exploitation requires that a user visits a malicious URL or open a malicious QTL file. Working exploit code is available to the public. There is no update available at this time, so users should beware suspicious links or Quicktime files (qtl).

Linksys XSS

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Bit Defender Online Scanner is vulnerable to remote code execution. A vulnerable ActiveX control can be exploited to execute code on a users system. The vulnerability is reported in version 8.0. There is an updated version available.

Linksys WAG54GS has some cross site scripting issues. Two separate issues can result in either script code execution in a user’s browser, or result in administrative function being performed by others when a logged in administrator visits a malicious site. These vulnerabilities are present in 1.00.06

Perl and PHP Issues, Citrix XSS

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Perl 5.8.8 contains a buffer overflow when processing certain regular expressions. The overflow can occur when switching between byte and Unicode characters. This affects currently installed versions of dev/lang. Users should apply their distributions’ updated version or rebuild the source with a patch applied.

PHP 5.2.4 is vulnerable to multiple issues. Successful exploitation could result in a denial of service condition, could allow an attacker to bypass security restrictions, or ultimately execute arbitrary code. PHP has released version 5.2.5 to address these issues.

Citrix NetScaler contains a XSS bug in the management interface. The vulnerability has been identified in version 8.0, build 47.8 and other versions may be affected. Users of this software should not remain logged in to the management interface while browsing other web sites.

Inside an Average PHP Scan

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I have been talking about PHP scans for a while now. They are so common that we get them on our HoneyPoint deployments all the time, often several times per day, depending on our location.

These scans follow traditional scanner patterns in that they grind through a list of specific urls that are known to have issues looking for a 200 response from the server.

Here is a quick list of a recent scan against one of our HoneyPoints:

/+webvpn+/index.html: 1 Time(s)
/PMA/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/database/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/datenbank/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/db/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/main.php: 2 Time(s)
/admin/myadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/mysql-admin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/mysql/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/mysqladmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/pMA/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/padmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/php-my-admin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpMyAdmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpmyadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/phpmyadmin2/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/sqladmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/sqlweb/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/sysadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/web/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/webadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/webdb/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/admin/websql/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/board/index.php: 4 Time(s)
/database/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/datenbank/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/db/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/favicon.ico: 1 Time(s)
/forum/index.php: 4 Time(s)
/forums/index.php: 4 Time(s)
/myadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/mysql-admin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/mysql/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/mysqladmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/padmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/php-my-admin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpMyAdmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpbb/index.php: 4 Time(s)
/phpbb2/index.php: 4 Time(s)
/phpmyadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/phpmyadmin2/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/robots.txt: 15 Time(s)
/sqlweb/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/web/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/webadmin/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/webdb/main.php: 1 Time(s)
/websql/main.php: 1 Time(s)
As you can see, the scanner requests some of the pages many times, usually with subtle differences in the method or url termination scheme. When we have faked the 200 responses for these pages, it simply catalogs the success and continues. Thus far, we have been unable to identify when/if the real human attacker returns to test and play with the finds, since there are just so many scans for these issues going on all the time. But, we continue to monitor and analyze, so hopefully soon we can identify a pattern of scans followed by verification and exploit.

Note that some/many of these scans will immediately exploit the vulnerability in PHP and use it to drop a bot-net client onto the machine. Of course, this immediately compromises the system and adds it to the scanning army. In those cases, the waiting for the return of the human attacker would not apply.

So, what does all of this mean? We wanted to give you some more insight into the wide scale PHP scans and what they look like. If you have not checked your own web site for these known vulnerabilities, it would likely be very wise to do so. It can be done quite easily by hand, using a simple Perl script or any of the publicly available web scanner tools.

Denial of Service in Linux Kernel

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Two denial of service vulnerabilities were reported in Linux kernels prior to 2.6.23.8 this weekend.

The first is caused by a design flaw in the “wait_task_stopped()” function. It is locally exploitable by manipulating the state of a child process. Kernel version 2.6.24-rc1 is also known to be vulnerable. See CVE-2007-5500 for more details.

The second involves a design flaw in the “write_queue_from” which creates a NULL-pointer issue. This vulnerability is remotely exploitable by sending the system a specially crafted ACK packet. See CVE-2007-5501 for more details.

The original advisory can be viewed at:
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.23.8

Multiple Buffer Overflows in Samba

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A new samba patch was released yesterday to address two buffer overflows. The first allows for the execution of arbitrary code when the WINS support option is enabled. An attacker would send specially crafted WINS requests to take advantage of this vulnerability. The second d can be exploited by sending a specially crafted GETDC mailslot request. For this second exploit to succeed samba must be configured as a Domain Controller. Samba versions 3.0.0-3.0.26a are know to be vulnerable to these issues.
The original advisory and patches are available at:
http://us1.samba.org/samba/history/security.html

Apple OS X Updates

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Apple has released new security updates for Mac OS X. The updates address a variety of issues including vulnerabilities in the Adobe Flash Player, AppleRAID, BIND, FTP, the kernel and various sub-systems. Successful exploitation of these issues could lead to system access, privilege escalation, Denial of Service issues, etc.

All users are strongly encouraged to update to Mac OS X 10.4.11 or apply Security Update 2007-008.

Full details can be found in the original Apple advisory:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307041